Transports and Interfaces: Siebel Enterprise Application Integration > EAI Transports and Interfaces Overview >

About EAI Transports

Transports allow Siebel Business Applications to exchange data with external applications using standard technologies for both synchronous and asynchronous communication protocols.

Transports handle all data as binary data (bytes) because the IsTextData parameter that was available in previous releases is no longer supported. If you want to use character conversion on the transport, you use the CharSetConversion parameter. Handling the data as binary defers any character set conversion until needed and avoids conversion at the transport level to prevent data corruption. For example, treating a UTF-8 encoded Extensible Markup Language (XML) document as text when the conversion executes leads to an XML string in the local code page, while its header still describes UTF-8. It is best to treat all self-describing data, including XML, as binary.

Character conversion is available in a number of business services. These business services are:

• EAI Transport business services (MQ Series, MSMQ, JMS, HTTP, DLL, File)
• XML Converter business services
• Transcode Service business service

When business services are invoked from a workflow, the valid set of encodings is controlled by a picklist. If the business services are invoked through scripting or similar mechanisms, the character set name is supplied textually.

NOTE:  For data validation or conversion from one encoding to another, you can use the Transcode Service business service if needed. For information on the Transcode Service business service, see Transcode Service Business Service.

Transports provide connectivity to virtually any communication protocol that can represent data as text or binary messages, including MQSeries from IBM, MSMQ from Microsoft, and HTTP. EAI Transports allow Siebel Business Applications to integrate with Web-based applications as well as legacy systems that are encapsulated using middleware. Transports are interchangeable. If you change technologies at any point, you can reuse existing workflows and logic by switching the transport adapter.

Transports can:

• Support bidirectional exchange of messages.
• Run within the Siebel Application Object Manager.
• Invoke and be invoked by Workflow Process Manager and EAI Dispatch Service.
• Be invoked within an eScript or VBScript.
• Send and receive messages in XML format.
• Pass messages through, or convert messages into, property sets for XML and MIME messages.

Available transports include:

• EAI MQSeries Server Transport. For information on these transports, see EAI MQSeries Server Transport.
• EAI MSMQ Transport. For information on this transport, see EAI MSMQ Transport.
• EAI HTTP Transport. For information on this transport, see EAI HTTP Transport.
• EAI DLL Transport and EAI File Transport. For information on these transports, see EAI DLL and EAI File Transports.

NOTE:  The transport business services are not re-entrant. This applies not only to receivers, but also to nonreceiver mode because users can define scripts in the business service that invoke the same business service. For more information on transport re-entrance, see About EAI MQSeries Transport Re-Entrance.