Architectural integration styles for large-scale enterprise software systems

A predominant problem in the management of large-scale enterprise software systems is application integration. Despite the considerable efforts spent on the development of new standards and technologies for software interoperation, the integration of systems that originally were not designed to interact with each other is a major undertaking, requiring in-depth knowledge of existing systems, incorporation of integration products, and development and/or parameterization of various kinds of adapters and gateways. The article presents the concept of architectural integration styles, i.e. architectural styles describing software structures of integration solutions for enterprise software systems. The article further proposes an approach for selection of styles based on the characteristics of the existing software applications and the desired quality attributes of the integrated system. A number of architectural integration styles for enterprise systems are presented, and a case study of the style selection process applied to a mid-sized Swedish electricity retailer is described