Discovery
In this fundamental, we will explain the concept of discovery within eMagiz. This concerns the discovery of an integration landscape, which is mainly achieved in the Capture & Design phases from eMagiz. The phases from eMagiz correspond with phases from Integration Lifecycle Management. More information about these phases can be found in this microlearning. Discovery of the integration landscape is very important and should be handled by experienced staff.
Should you have any questions, please get in touch with academy@emagiz.com.
1. Prerequisites
- Some context on the Integration Lifecycle Management phases will be helpful.
2. Key concepts
- With the discovery of an integration landscape, we mean the development of the design of the integration landscape.
- Before developing the integration landscape in eMagiz, technical requirements need to be established.
- In eMagiz, discovery concerns the Capture & Design phases.
3. Technical requirements
Before entering the Capture phase, several technical requirements need to be considered.
- First of all, it needs to be discussed who will provide data and who will consume data.
- Secondly, the exact definition of the data elements that will be exchanged has to be obtained.
- Thirdly, the size of the data packets needs to be established, as well as the frequency of the packets.
- Lastly, it has to be considered what constraints with respect to connectivity have to be in place.
A more elaborate description of the technical requirements can be found in this microlearning.
4. Capture
In the Capture phase, the involved systems and integrations are drawn into a canvas. The technical requirements as described in the previous section should be stored in this phase as well. We recommend filling out all documentation available in this phase, because this documentation can help to ensure smooth development by means of providing the context and other supporting information to the involved team members/stakeholders, so they can make better decisions when developing or maintaining the integration in the subsequent phases.
When you want to create your systems, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What systems are relevant in our business case?
- What is the purpose of each system?
- What should each system be called?
- What should be the default integration pattern for each system?
In case you would like to add systems to your existing integration landscape, you need to ask yourself several questions as well:
- How does this system fit into my existing landscape?
- Does this system have similarities with existing systems?
- How should this system interact with existing systems?
Some more documentation may be relevant, and can be filled out easily while configuring a system. More information on how to configure a system can be found in this microlearning.
When you want to create an integration, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the purpose of this integration?
- What should be the direction of this integration?
- What should this integration be called?
- Which integration pattern belongs to this integration?
Some more documentation may be relevant, and can be filled out easily while configuring an integration. More information on how to configure a message type or integration can be found in the corresponding mircolearnings.
5. Design
After the Capture phase, you can proceed to the Design phase. In the Design phase, the system message definitions are created, and the transformation mappings are drawn. A message definition is a visual representation of how the elements are related to each other, whether they are mandatory and the data types they have that can be used in the message mapping. The client infrastructure is also determined in the Design phase, and several cloud components are specified. When you start working in the design phase, you should ask yourself the following questions:
- What should my data model look like?
- What message definitions are needed?
- Which message formats are required?
- How should the message mapping be done?
- What should the architecture (incl. instances, machine sizes, etc.) be like?
- What metadata needs to be stored?
In case you would like to expand your existing integration landscape, you need to ask yourself several questions as well:
- How does my addition to the data model fit into the current data model?
- Which entities in the current data model have overlap with the entities I wish to add?
- Are there any overlapping system messages if I add this system message?
Several more questions may be relevant. Documentation on how to develop in the Design phase can be found in the Platform Crash Courses.
6. Key takeaways
- Discovery concerns the design of the integration landscape.
- An establishment of technical requirements is necessary before continuing with discovery in eMagiz.
- The Capture & Design phases are used to discover the integration landscape in eMagiz.