TIBCO Adapters

1) What is the use of TIBCO Adapters?
Using TIBCO Adapters we can bridge custom applications, databases, and other technologies in the enterprise information flow, regardless of their data formats or communication protocols. An adapter isolates an application from complex interaction and makes it part of TIBCO infrastructure without requiring any changes to the application. Integration of new applications does not require programming and does not interfere with existing infrastructure.
TIBCO Adapters encapsulate complex interaction patterns into a set of standard services. This makes it easy to administer the adapters.
TIBCO Adapters exchange information through the TIBCO messaging platform, which provides flexible and scalable information bus infrastructure. When the information is published to TIBCO infrastructure, it is transformed and delivered with extremely low latency and you can implement business process automation across applications.

2) What are the Adapter Interaction Modes available?
An adapter generally supports publish/subscribe and request/response interaction modes.
Publish/subscribe is Asynchronous model
Request/response is Synchronous model.

3) What is Adapter Service?
Adapter Services are abstractions that describe how adapters work together with other applications and based on service architecture TIBCO Adapter receives data available from a source application or sends data to a target application.

4) What is Publish and Subscribe Interactions?
Publish and subscribe interactions are driven by events.
Example: arrival of data or a timer signaling that a specified interval has expired.

5) What are the services are available for publish and subscribe interactions?
Publication Service: An adapter Publication Service recognizes when business events happen in a vendor application, and asynchronously publishes the event data in real time to interested systems in the TIBCO environment.

Subscription Service: An adapter Subscription Service retrieves information about business events from the TIBCO environment, and asynchronously writes the information into a target application.

6) What is Request/Response Interactions?
In request/response interactions, a data provider coordinates closely with a data consumer. A provider does not send data until a consumer requests it. The consumer listens until it receives the reply, and then stops listening.
It’s a Demand-driven computing which suits distributed applications that require point-to-point messages, that is, a request and a response pattern.

7) What are the services are available for Request/Response Interactions?
Request-Response Invocation Service:  Adapter Request-Response Invocation Service will receive a request message from the vendor application which sends to another application to perform some operation through TIBCO infrastructure. Once Application returns the result to TIBCO infrastructure then the adapter receives the response and sends it back to vendor application. OR An adapter Request-Response Invocation Service acts as a proxy, giving the vendor application the ability to invoke services on TIBCO infrastructure. TIBCO infrastructure performs a series of steps to complete the request, including invoking services on other applications through TIBCO infrastructure and other adapters.

Request-Response Service: An adapter Request-Response Service sends a request message from TIBCO infrastructure to application and adapter gets a response from application which its sent the request and returns it to TIBCO infrastructure, which then sends the response to another application.

OR

An adapter Request-Response Service is similar to the Request-Response Invocation Service, except that the roles are reversed. The vendor application is now the provider of the service, instead of the requester or initiator of the service. After the action is performed in the vendor application, the adapter service sends a response back to the requester with either the results of the action or a confirmation that the action occurred.

8) What is Adapter Palette?

Each adapter includes a palette to configure adapter specific options, such as its connection to the vendor application, logging options, and adapter services.

An adapter palette generally contains the following resources:

• Adapter configuration

• Adapter services

• Other adapter specific resources.

9) What is runtime adapter?

After configuration and deploy the adapter, A deployed adapter instance is referred to as a runtime adapter. A runtime adapter uses the runtime component to operate in a production environment, handling communication between a vendor application and other applications that are integrated through TIBCO infrastructure.

10) What are the Adapter Capabilities?

Adapter Capabilities are Easy Configuration and Deployment, Robust and Reliable Data Transmission, Multilingual Support and Security Support.

11) Explain about Adapter Life Cycle?

Life cycle of an adapter includes five stages those are:

Installation: The installation stage includes installing the target application and the adapter. The target applications are TIBCO software products that the adapter requires.

Configuration: The configuration stage includes configuring an adapter and testing its connection and behaviors with the target application. An adapter uses the configuration information to interact with the target application and other TIBCO infrastructure software at runtime.

Integration: The integration stage includes developing a business process to integrate the target application connected through the adapter into the data flow in your enterprise. TIBCO integration platform connects to applications of different types, such as databases, trading partners and exchanges, and so on. It makes the data flow throughout the enterprise transparent to the end users.

Deployment: After developing and testing an integration project with adapters, you can deploy the project to your production environment.

Production: The production stage includes managing and monitoring adapter projects.

12) In how many ways, Tibco is supporting adapter life cycle?

TIBCO infrastructure supports the adapter life cycle with two frameworks:

Traditional Framework

TIBCO Active Matrix Framework.

13) Explain Adapter Life Cycle using TIBCO Traditional Framework?

TIBCO supports the adapter life cycle with a series of well-established products, such as TIBCO Runtime Agent, TIBCO Designer, TIBCO Administrator, and so on. An adapter project runs as a separate standalone process in the traditional framework.

14) Explain Adapter Life Cycle using TIBCO Active Matrix Framework?

TIBCO Active Matrix Framework provides a technology-neutral platform to composite BPM (business process management) and SOA (service-oriented architecture) applications. The platform is based on the TIBCO Active Matrix Service Grid product. It provides a suite of application development and integration tools, such as TIBCO Business Studio, TIBCO

Active Matrix Administrator.

15) What is TIBCO Adapter SDK?

TIBCO Adapter SDK (Software Development Kit) is the standard toolkit to build TIBCO Adapters. It provides the foundation for common adapter functionalities, such as sending and receiving information, configuration, management, and monitoring. The SDK also supports interoperability with other TIBCO products.

16) What is Adapter Instances?

An adapter instance contains the adapter configuration information, including name, connection, logging, monitoring, and so on. Within each adapter instance, you can add multiple adapter services, which contain the service configuration information. You can use the adapter service resources in the adapter palette to add adapter services to an adapter instance.

17) Explain TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files?

TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files will processes data from text files and publishes the contents in real-time to the TIBCO environment. The adapter also listens for messages in the TIBCO environment and writes the contents to a file.

18) What are the different Adapter Services will provided by TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files?

TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files provides Publication Service and Subscription Service.

19) Publication Service for TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files?

Publication Service is used to process data from text files and publish the contents in real-time to the TIBCO environment.

For example, Publication Service scans the input directory when receiving a timer event or a trigger message, parses the files in the input directory, and publishes the contents in real-time to the TIBCO environment which other applications receive and process the messages that have been published.

20) Subscription Service for TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files?

Subscription Service is used to listen for messages in the TIBCO environment, process the received messages, and write the contents to text file.

21) What is the Operation Mode?

The operation mode determines whether the service integrates the file system with the TIBCO Active Enterprise environment or transfers files between instances of TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files.

In the Record Transfer Mode, where the adapter integrates the file system with TIBCO Active Enterprise, you need to define and use schemas.

In the Simple File Transfer Mode, the adapter transfers files among instances of TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files.

22) What is Read Schema and Write Schema in TIBCO Active Matrix Adapter for Files?

The schema created and used by Publication Service is referred to as Read Schema. The schema used by Subscription Service is referred to as Write Schema, including Write Schema(Classic) and Write Schema(Manual) and the canonical format is referred to as the Wire Schema.

Write Schema (Classic) is a write schema that is generated from an existing read schema. Write Schema (Manual) is a write schema that is created manually without depending on any existing schema.