Event-Based Integrations

This integration type is the most recommended approach, if available, on the systems being integrated. It is the most inherently fault-tolerant approach.

The Integration Hub and its Shared Services do not expose an event system for general use. It is expected that one or both integrated systems will provide an event mechanism. For many integration offerings, the Azure Service Bus (ASB) attached to the Anthology Student deployment should be considered.

The topic for consuming whatever event is being produced should exist on the publishing system's deployment. In the Anthology Student ASB example, the topic exists in the Anthology Student deployment.

ASB access information, entity transformation rules, and other settings are all typical candidates for storage in the Integration Hub's Configuration Service. Event model transformation for consumption by target systems is a prime target for Integration Hub's Transformation Service usage.

Asynchronous Integration Using Azure Service Bus

The asynchronous model is a "publish-subscribe" model wherein an Anthology source product publishes Business Events to the Azure Service Bus, and any system attached to the customer's cloud can subscribe to the events. This is a one-way message flow, that is, the source system does not expect a response from the target systems.

Anthology's roadmap includes expanding its product integration capabilities using the Azure Service Bus.

Azure Service Bus is a fully managed enterprise message broker with message queues and publish-subscribe topics (in a namespace). Service Bus is used to decouple applications and services from each other, providing the following benefits:

  • Load-balancing work across competing workers

  • Safely routing and transferring data and control across service and application boundaries

  • Coordinating transactional work that requires a high degree of reliability

For more details refer to What is Azure Service Bus?

  

  1. The Authoritative Source publishes a business event to the Service Bus.

  2. The Service Bus uses configuration information from the Integration Hub to validate subscribers.

  3. Anthology product or partner functions retrieve messages from the Service Bus and process business logic.

  4. Anthology product functions pass messages to client extension functions for client-specific business logic.

  5. Messages are published to the subscribing system.

Authoritative Source

The Authoritative Source (also referred to as the "System of Truth") is defined for the following entities:

Authoritative Source Entities

Anthology Student

Students

Transcripts

Financial Aid

Student BIlling

Courses

Grades

Advising

Finance & HCM

General Ledger

Fund Sources

AP (Accounts Payable) / AR (Accounts Receivable)

Staff / Workers

Jobs

Positions

Anthology Reach

People

Organizations

Communications

Cases

Blackboard

Attendance

Lessons

Lesson Grades

Student Activity