Introduction to Application Integration

WebLogic Integration provides a standards-based integration solution for connecting applications both within and between enterprises. Specifically, this solution provides a means to integrate applications by defining communication endpoints, either in custom code or in a process flow defined with the WebLogic Integration Studio.

WebLogic Integration provides the following tools for integrating applications:

• Integration framework

• Adapter Development Kit (ADK)

• EIS adapters

• Application integration plug-in for the WebLogic Integration Studio

By using these tools, you can integrate all your enterprise information systems (EIS). Typical IT organizations use several highly specialized applications. Without a common integration platform, integration of such applications requires extensive, highly specialized development efforts.

WebLogic Integration makes use of adapters to establish a single enterprise-wide framework for integrating current or future applications. Adapters greatly simplify your integration efforts because they allow you to integrate each application with a single application server, and thus avoid the need to integrate every application with every other application.

WebLogic Integration helps you use these adapters to define business-focused interfaces to an EIS. These interfaces, called application views, provide a simple, consistent, self-describing interface to services and events in an application. Unlike adapter users, application view users are not required to have intimate knowledge of the EIS or its client interface. As a result, users who are not programmers, such as technical analysts, can use application views. These same users may be incapable of using an adapter directly, due to lack of familiarity with the EIS.

The following sections give a brief overview of each of the application integration tools provided by WebLogic Integration. For details, see Developing Adapters and Using Application Integration.