Integration Flows Modeling in the Context of Architectural Views

Abstract

In an increasing number of software applications, the execution of their functions depends on communication with external systems. Messaging enables the integration of information technology (IT) systems in a loosely-coupled manner. The paper aims to show the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Integrated services</i> architectural view and two methods of modeling messaging flows at the service and business levels. Service flows allow for modeling the communication between systems/services at the level of sending messages. In contrast, business flows model the entire course of interaction among cooperating applications. The methods employ an Integration flows diagram, which is a specialized version of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) Activity diagram. In addition, the business process task from the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Integrated Processes</i> view defines the context for the business flow. Moreover, the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Use Cases</i> view identifies the integration scope within requirements. All those views belong to the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</i> + <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">5</i> architectural views model. The paper exerts extensibility mechanisms declared in the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">UML Profile for Messaging Patterns</i> . Besides, the profile has been augmented with stereotypes for messaging patterns for the Apache Camel framework, stakeholders involved in communication, and up-to-date stereotypes for structural components. The methods were used in the integration design of sending orders and confirmations between the business applications of the brokerage house and the stock exchange.