Introduction: ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks Services
In ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks, services are responsible for publishing or subscribing to business data in a decoupled yet reliable manner. The business process receives data from a service and routes data to a service. Examples of services are could be a SendPurchaseOrder
activity or a RequestShippingInformation
activity. ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks supports web services for interaction with the Internet and adapter services for interaction with files, databases, or different ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications.
Enterprise integration platforms typically use a tightly coupled architecture, where all components of a business process are running on one server. If any component in the system changes, the system no longer works. If the server goes down, all components of the business process stop.
In contrast, a service-centric architecture supports self-contained services. Each service is configured separately and can be deployed on a different machine. If one machine goes down, all other parts of the process can still run. Service descriptions are stored with the TIBCO Administration Server. The business process coordinates the services in the appropriate way. For example, a process could contain a Publish to Adapter
activity that accesses an adapter subscriber service.
This loosely-coupled architecture makes it easy to change individual components as needed.