1 Getting Started with the AIA Development Guide

1.1 Goal of the AIA Development Guide

The Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA) Foundation Pack: Development Guide defines in detail how you can use the Oracle AIA Foundation Pack to conceptualize AIA projects and, using the AIA Project Lifecycle Management application, implement a solution conforming to the AIA in a structured fashion based on a functional design document. You can use this guide to implement additional functionalities in the form of new services extending the AIA Process Integration Packs (PIP) functionalities.

Following this guide is the key to ensuring that the AIA solution that you build and implement can be upgraded, supported, and maintained.

1.2 Types of Integrations Addressed by AIA

AIA addresses two types of integrations:

• Functional integration

  Functional integration weaves together the various functionalities of different participating applications, exposed as services, as processes to accomplish business tasks that span multiple applications in any enterprise.

• Data integration

  Data integration connects applications at the data level and makes the same data available to multiple applications. This type of integration relies on database technologies and is ideal when a minimum amount of business logic is reused and large amounts of data transactions are involved across applications. This type of integration is suitable for batch data uploads or bulk data sync requirements.

1.3 Integration Styles Addressed by AIA

AIA provides reference architecture for a variety of situations. Depending on the size and complexity of integration projects, the integration style adopted for implementing integration flows varies. The number of participating applications and their role in integration flows contribute to the integration style adopted.

The integration flow as shown in Figure 1-1 represents the journey of a message from a business event triggering source to one or more target milestones, after passing through possible intermediary milestones. At each milestone, the message is stored in a different state.

Figure 1-1 Illustration of the Integration Flow

The integration flow represents the run-time path of a message. It is not a design time artifact.

AIA addresses the following integration styles:

• Integration Through Native Application Interfaces Using the Oracle Applications Technology Infrastructure

• Integration styles with integration framework

  • Direct Integration Through Application Web Services Using Oracle SOA Suite

  • Integration Through Packaged Canonical and Standardized Interfaces Using Oracle Foundation Pack

• Integration styles for bulk data processing

  • Real-time data integration flow

  • Batch data integration flow

1.4 How to Use the AIA Development Guide

The sales process provides detailed information about the value of AIA offerings. The value presented is perceived in the context of a business problem for which a solution is being sought.

The detailed analysis of the business problem and documenting of related business requirements leads to a Functional Design Document (FDD), which provides:

• A detailed description of the business case

• Various use cases detailing the various usage scenarios including the exception cases with expected actions by various actors

• Details about all the participating applications - commercial, off-the-shelf with versions and homegrown

• Details about the triggering business events

• Details about the functional flow

• Details about business objects to be used

• Actions to be performed on the various business objects

• Details about performance and scalability requirements

The AIA Development Guide assumes:

• A Functional Design Document is available

• Access to AIA software

• Access to all AIA-provided documents

• You have read the AIA Concepts and Technologies Guide

The AIA Development Guide is logically divided as follows:

• Overview of all tasks for building the AIA integration flow

• Details of development of various AIA artifacts

• Activities around interaction between AIA artifacts and external artifacts

• Discussion of various design patterns, best practices, and tuning for run-time performance

Start with Chapter 2, "Building AIA Integration Flows" and move to relevant chapters in the Development Guide as needed.