INTEROPERABILITY OF TRANSPORT BUSINESS SYSTEMS BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF SERVICE-ORIENTED B2B APPLICATIONS

Abstract

The general concept of interoperability refers to the ability of two systems to exchange information, and to use them. Applications integration enables information exchange between applications or IT systems within one or more companies. In the context of business systems and their applications, interoperability can be defined as the system or product’s ability to work smoothly with other system or product without any special efforts from the customer or user’s side. This paper presents the contemporary models, methods and techniques that enable interoperability in e-commerce traffic systems. Since the integration between applications is one of the ways to achieve interoperability in transport business systems, this study will include the integration of various application technologies that exist today, with special emphasis on service-oriented integration. B2B application integration methodology based on Microsoft adapter technologies and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service will be demonstrated. WCF is a powerful framework that enables creation, hosting and usage of WCF services. It provides unique, transport neutral, development paradigm with a common view on safety issues, transactions and processing exceptions. WCF is a key part of BizTalk Server 2009 platform, on which Microsoft service-oriented strategy is based. BizTalk Server adapters represent specific application interfaces from one or more different organizations towards BizTalk messaging engine. They are used for connecting diverse entities (like application, sector or another organization) to enable data, events, processes and services integration.