SOA Web Services - Broker Application Pattern

Broker Application Pattern

The Broker application pattern is based on 1-to-N connections. A single interaction initiated by a source application is distributed across multiple target applications. This is illustrated in the following figure.

This pattern helps in reducing the clutter of point-to-point connections between the applications. Among the several target applications, the applications that require a common interaction with the source application are isolated and grouped together. The interaction rules are defined in the Broker Rules tier. The decomposition and composition of interaction are managed by the broker rules.

The pattern may have another variation based on how the interaction is routed. This is illustrated in the following figure.

In this case, the rules for routing the interaction request are defined in the Router Rules tier. The interaction is routed to a single target application from a logical group of applications. The route is decided by the routing rules.

In the case of an Extended Enterprise domain, this pattern defines the interaction between a source application and the multiple target partner applications.

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Guidelines

The Broker application pattern facilities SOA. Legacy applications can be wrapped as services. A Service Broker provides a desired service to a service consumer. The type of service and its composition and decomposition are decided at run time providing a very flexible solution in application integration.