The Integration Process

Using the Service-Oriented integration approach involves six steps:

1.

Writing the Service, or adapting existing code. A Service can be virtually any type of implementation: a library (DLL or .so), a .NET assembly, a Java class, an R function, even an executable. No DataSynapse libraries need be linked, but the remotely callable methods of the Service might have to follow certain conventions. These conventions are described later.

2.

Deploying the Service. The implementation files and other resources required by a Service must be accessible from all Engines. This can be accomplished with a shared file system or GridServer’s file update mechanism.

3.

Registering the Service Type. To make the Service Type visible to clients, it must be registered, using the Administration Tool.

4.

Creating a Service Session. The client creates or gets access to a Service before using it — no discovery or binding is required. Each Service Session might have its own state. Because of virtualization, a single Service Session can correspond to more than one physical instance of the Service, such as more than one Engine running the Service’s code. Multiple asynchronous calls to a Service usually result in more than one Engine creating and accessing those Services.

5.

Making requests. The methods or functions of a Service can be called remotely either synchronously or asynchronously.

6.

Destroying the instance. Clients must destroy a Service Session when they are done with it, to free resources.