Introduction to PeopleSoft Integration Broker

PeopleSoft Integration Broker is a middleware technology that:

  • Performs asynchronous and synchronous messaging among internal systems and third-party systems.

  • Exposes PeopleSoft business logic as web services to PeopleSoft and third-party systems.

  • Consumes and invokes web services from third-party and PeopleSoft systems.

PeopleSoft Integration Broker enables you to perform these integrations among internal systems and third-party integration partners, while managing data structure, data format and transport disparities. Because of its modular design, you can reuse many elements that you develop for integrations.

PeopleSoft Integration Broker consists of two subsystems: the integration gateway and the integration engine. The integration gateway resides on a PeopleSoft web server, and the integration engine is installed on an application server as part of the PeopleSoft application.

Important! PeopleSoft Integration Broker interacts with a wide variety of third-party products. This documentation is not an authoritative source of information about any third-party product. Most third-party products are delivered with their own documentation, which you should use as the primary source for information about them. This product documentation provides guidance that enables you to determine the configuration settings that PeopleSoft Integration Broker requires to work with third-party products. It does not address all configuration permutations. Examples of settings and data relative to a third-party product may not be correct for your particular situation. To properly configure PeopleSoft Integration Broker, you must apply your own expertise and obtain the most accurate and current information about third-party products.

PeopleSoft Integration Broker enables you to provide web services to other PeopleSoft systems and external integration partners by generating Web Services Description Language (WSDL) documents and Web Application Definition Language (WADL) document from integration metadata. PeopleSoft supports providing WSDL documents and WADL documents to the PeopleSoft WSDL repository. The system also supports providing WSDL documents to Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) repositories.

The system enables you to consume WSDL documents from other PeopleSoft and third-party systems, and automatically creates integration metadata based on the consumed WSDL documents for processing integrations. You can consume WSDL documents from other PeopleSoft systems, UDDI repositories, WSDL URLs, and Web Services Inspection Language (WSIL) URLs.

The integration gateway is a platform that manages the receipt and delivery of messages passed among systems through PeopleSoft Integration Broker. It supports the leading TCP/IP application protocols used in the marketplace today and provides extensible interfaces to develop new connectors for communication with legacy, enterprise resource planning, and internet-based systems.

Additional features include:

  • Backward compatibility for Extensible Markup Language (XML) links and PeopleSoft Application Messaging.

  • Listening connectors and target connectors that transport messages between integration participants and the integration engine.

    Note: This feature also enables you to build your own connectors to complement those delivered with PeopleSoft Integration Broker.

  • Basic logging information concerning message receipt, delivery, and errors.

  • Connection persistence with continuous open feeds to external systems through connectors, with full failover capabilities.

  • Transport protocol and message format management so that when messages reach the integration engine, they have a PeopleSoft-compatible message format.

The integration engine runs on the PeopleSoft application server. Rather than communicating directly with other applications, the integration engine sends and receives messages through one or more separately installed integration gateways.

The integration engine:

  • Uses a modular architecture, so it can treat gateways as black boxes and communicate with them using standard connectors.

  • Adapts elements of an existing integration to produce a new integration with only minor adjustments.

  • Handles messages containing data in a variety of formats. Formats include the PeopleSoft rowset-based message format, and nonrowset-based message structures including , XML document object model messages, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages, and non-XML files.

  • Sends and receives messages asynchronously (like email) or synchronously (suspending activity to wait for a response).

  • Applies message transmission type and routing based on specifications that you define in a PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture component.

  • By developing and applying application engine transform programs, the application engine can transform message structure and translate data content according to specifications that you define in PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture components.

    You develop transform application engine programs in PeopleCode or Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) code.

    These specifications can be reused for other integrations.

  • Handles security features such as authentication, nonrepudiation, and cookies.