An enterprise has multiple applications that are being built independently, with different languages and platforms. The enterprise needs to share data and processes in a responsive way. How can I integrate multiple applications so that they work together and can exchange information? Develop each application as a large-scale object or component with encapsulated data. Provide an interface to allow other applications to interact with the running application. Remote Procedure Invocation applies the principle of encapsulation to integrating applications. If an application needs some information that is owned by another application, it asks that application directly. If one application needs to modify the data of another, then it does so by making a call to the other application. Each application can maintain the integrity of the data it owns. Furthermore, each application can alter its internal data without having every other application be affected. Although the encapsulation helps reduce the coupling of the applications, by eliminating a large shared data structure, the applications are still fairly tightly coupled together. The remote calls each system supports tends to tie the different systems into a growing knot. In particular, sequencing--doing certain things in a particular order--can make it difficult to change systems independently. Often these become problems because issues that aren't significant within a single application become so when integrating applications. People often design the integration the way they would design a single application, unaware that the rules change. ...Related patterns: File Transfer, Messaging, Shared Database |
Want to keep up-to-date? Follow My Blog.
Want to read more in depth? Check out My Articles.
Want to see me live? See where I am speaking next.
![]() Find the full description of this pattern in: | From Enterprise Integration to Enterprise Transformation: My new book describes how architects can play a critical role in IT transformation by applying their technical, communication, and organizational skills with 37 episodes from large-scale enterprise IT. |
![]() Parts of this page are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license. You can reuse the pattern icon, the pattern name, the problem and solution statements (in bold), and the sketch under this license. Other portions of the text, such as text chapters or the full pattern text, are protected by copyright. |
© 2003, 2019 • Bobby Woolf • All rights reserved. |