Getting Started with PeopleSoft Integration Broker

This chapter provides an overview of PeopleSoft Integration Broker and discusses considerations for how to:

Plan the integration architecture.
Plan integrations.
Determine security.
Plan for support.
Assess staff skills.

PeopleSoft Integration Broker Overview

This PeopleBook describes using PeopleSoft Integration Broker to perform asynchronous and synchronous messaging among internal systems and third-party systems.

The two major components of PeopleSoft Integration Broker are the integration gateway and the integration engine. The integration gateway is a platform that manages the receipt and delivery of messages passed among systems through PeopleSoft Integration Broker. The integration engine is an application server process that routes messages to and from PeopleSoft applications as well as tranforms the structure of messages and translates data according to specifications that you define.

Implementing PeopleSoft Integration Broker

PeopleSoft Integration Broker is installed as part of the PeopleTools installation process. Information about configuring the integration gateway, creating messages and administering integrations is described later in this PeopleBook.

This section provides information to consider before you begin to use PeopleSoft Integration Broker.

Planning the Integration Architecture

Evaluate historical integration data, current data, as well as expected growth and increased traffic. Devise simulated real-life integration scenarios where you can estimate volume and size of the transactions to a certain degree. Then use this information for benchmarking, which should lead to architecture planning, hardware sizing, and so on.

Planning Integrations

In planning the integrations to develop and execute, consider the following:

Inventory the integrations to develop.

Determine which systems and applications will participate in each integration.

Consider dependencies on other systems owned by other groups having concurrent releases, and data dependencies within the context of synchronizing data between systems. Are the source or target systems capable of handling XML? Do they require a specific schema/protocol? Do language or character set requirements exist?
Prioritize integration development.

Plan to develop mission critical integrations first, standard integrations next, and nice-to-have integrations last.
Determine which integrations will require synchronous messaging and which ones will require asynchronous messaging.
Determine if data will need transformation or translation.

Determining Security

Consider the following security-related points:

Evaluate if system-level authentication is required.
Determine security requirements for specific integrations.

For example, security requirements might differ when interfacing with credit card processing vendors, versus publishing salary information out of human resources, versus synchronizing business units between applications, and so on.

Planning for Support

Develop a support plan for after “go-live.” In doing so, consider the following:

Determine who in your organization should support integration development and administration.
Determine the type of error-notification and exception handling to implement to meet your support requirements.

Assessing Staff Skills

Assess the skills of the people who will perform development and administrative functions.

Developers working on the implementation of PeopleSoft Integration Broker should have familiarity, training or experience in the following areas:

PeopleTools.
PeopleCode.
Application Engine.
Application Messaging.

In addition, developers should have an understanding and research capabilities in Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

Administrators of PeopleSoft Integration Broker should have familiarity, training or experience in the following areas:

PeopleTools.
Web server administration.
Application server administration.
Performance testing and tuning tools knowledge.

Other Sources of Information

In addition to the implementation considerations presented in this chapter, take advantage of all PeopleSoft sources of information, including the installation guides, release notes, PeopleBooks, curriculum and red papers.