The Ubiquitous Broker Environment (TUBE): an architecture for protocol-level systems integration

Abstract

The fundamental goal of systems integration is to allow diverse, often independently developed software to be integrated for a common purpose. This need for integration stemms from the dynamics of business and technology, as businesses expand, take over other businesses, or join in partnerships and alliances. The new business opportunities afforded by the new technologies are realised with the deployment of new software systems, and with the opporunity for existing systems to use data and functions of other systems. In this environment, the central focus of the integration should be to provide a framework to allow heterogeneous systems to seamlessly inter-operate. A number of solutions, ranging from infrastructure to systems architecture, have been developed over the years, but they generally lack wide applicability and ease of use. This paper describes the architecture of a system prototype being implemented to more simply effect protocol-level integration of computer systems using heterogeneous middleware technologies. The approach taken is declarative, that is, simple declarative procedures should be required to adapt the system to a new or altered middleware platform, with the main objective of avoiding avoid changes to applications if the middleware platform changes.