System integrations

Max amount of FITech students: 20 adult learners

This course provides information about technologies used when integrating information systems, applications and data. It is important to know how data integrations should be designed for certain purposes, and what options are available when the protocol and data exchange format are selected for certain use. Integrated data sources have an important role in the decision making process. This course also helps to understand role of system integrations in enterprise architecture and business.

Course contents

• Why we integrate systems and what it requires?
• Integration styles and types
• What are APIs and how they are used?
• System integration design principles
• System integration monitoring
• Local and cloud integration platforms
• Data integration strategy questions
• Enterprise integration patterns
• Messaging systems
• Securing integrations

The course also covers following technical topics: Schema mapping, message transformation, data exchange format overview, basics of integration error handling and basics of Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

Learning outcomes

After the course, student understands:

• the role of system integrations function in a company.
• how system integration related decisions are made.
• how integrations can be managed and monitored.
• what questions data integration strategy responds.
• purpose of schemas.
• importance of error handling and integration monitoring.
• responsibilities related to system integrations.

After the course, student knows:

• what kind of integration platforms are available.
• what are the basic data integration types and architectural styles.
• system integration related terminology.
• some of the most common enterprise integration patterns and when they should be used.
• how to model the data flow and messaging between systems.
• what affects on choosing the data exchange format standard and protocol and what options are available.
• what is meant by Robotic Process Automation and how it can be used when API is not available.
• risks related to different integration types and how they can be avoided.

After the course, student is able to:

• map data between systems using Altova MapForce.
• create integration design diagrams for different types of integrations.
• implement simple publish-subscribe integration using node.js and JMS.
• transform and validate data with Java using XSLT and XML schema.

Course material

Course material is provided in Moodle.

Teacher uses Altova MapForce to map data between systems. If a student chooses to submit exercises related to this topic (1 exercise), they should install at least the free evaluation edition of the tool.

Teaching schedule

Course has 8 online Zoom lectures, 2 hours / session. Presence is not mandatory, but lectures are not recorded.

Completion methods

50 % of the evaluation is based on exercises, other half on the research article and the opponent report. If a student chooses programming exercises, they should have programming experience in saving and reading files, making HTTP calls and querying data from relational databases. Examples are given using Java and JavaScript, but exercises can be completed with other programming languages too.

Course completion requirements:

• Creating a research article review on some of the given topics. Recommended length is 5–8 pages.
• Creating an opponent report for another review article. Recommended length of the report is 1–2 pages.
• Completing exercises. Course grade depends on the number of submitted answers and the validity of answers. Students can choose the exercises they want to complete. Some of the exercises need intermediate programming skills.

More information in the University of Vaasa study guide. (Course schedule is available in Peppi once the implementation details are published.)

You can get a digital badge after completing this course.

iPaaS järjestelmäliitynnät, integraatio, publish-subscribe, point-to-point, EDI, JSON, API messaging