Chapter 8: Designing Application Integration and Business Automation
In the previous chapter, we explored the concept of middleware in an application server. That's probably the most traditional meaning of middleware: you are using a layer providing some features to your code in order to standardize and avoid reinventing the wheel.
That's, of course, a concept inherent to the middleware term: something in between your code and the rest of the world (whether it's a database, the operating system resources, and so on). But middleware has a broader meaning in the enterprise world. One such meaning is related to the concept of application integration. In this sense, the middleware sits in between your application and the rest of the world, meaning other applications, legacy systems, and more.
In this chapter, we will look at some typical topics related to application integration. We will then have a look at another important related middleware aspect, which is business...
