nTegrator Components

The nTegrator environment is composed of combinations of three basic components:

1. Collections
    A Collection is the fundamental starting point for a nTegrator business solution. Business logic is usually contained in one or more Agents attached to that collection and other components in the hierarchy below the initial collection.  Collections contain Data Transports and/or other Collections. All information that is maintained by an nTegrator system is contained in a hierarchy of collections. In addition to its function as a container, a Collections has several important other features to:

   • provide an important part of nTegrator security in that users are given access to the system through a single collection basis and they cannot see or access any components that are not contained in that collection or it's contents.

   • route incoming messages to one or more components contained in the collection. If a message is being routed to more than one component, separate threads are used to activate each component so that the operation requested in the message is executed in parallel by all of the components.

   • Act as a proxy for a Collection located on another nTegrator system. The contents of the proxy collection can be treated in the same way as the contents of a local Collection.

    

2. Data Transports
   Data Transports are small programs that that are a source or a sink of data. When reading data, a Data Transport converts the incoming data into nTegrator's internal XML format (XML & Web services). When writing data, the Data Transport converts data from the internal XML format to the native format required by the data sink.

   The basic nTegrator system includes the following Data Transports to:

   • provide access to a relational database using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

   • read/write native XML text files (XML)

   • Allow developer to program new Data Transports in VBScript or JavaScript (script)

   • request input from a user by means of a dialog box (userin)

   • use COM to read/write various parts of Microsoft Outlook, such as mail, addresses, tasks, calendar -  (written in VBScript).

   • allow user to read/write text and binary files (files)

   • support SOAP access to external Web Services (soap)

   Optional Data Transports are available to:

   • support internet payment processing (epayment)

   • support access to QuickBooks application (QuickBooks)

   • support access to BizTalk (BizTalk)

   • support access to USPS shipping and tracking (USPS)

    

3. Agents
   An agent is a program that can be attached to a Collection or a Data Transport. The agent "sees" all messages sent to or received from it's host Collection or Data item, and can examine or modify the message as required. Agents can be used to transform data, perform logging, execute business logic, and route messages to components in a host Collection.