Architecture

The Branch Transformation Toolkit is based on the J2EE standard. The development environment of toolkit applications is integrated with WebSphere(R) Studio Application Developer, which is based on the Eclipse platform; and the runtime environment of toolkit applications is based on WebSphere Application Server or WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation.

The architecture of the Branch Transformation Toolkit application solution is based on a logical three-tier model: back-end enterprise tier, application server tier, and client tier. The following figure depicts these tiers:


Diagram showing the three tiers and the communication occurring between them

The client tier is responsible for presenting an interface to the user in a client device. The Branch Transformation Toolkit supports the following types of clients:

For Java clients, the toolkit provides a set of graphical user interface (GUI) JavaBeans™ for building the client user interface and a mechanism for navigating the views of the application. For the HTML browser clients, the toolkit Struts Extension framework on the application presentation layer of the application server tier manages the user interface and view navigation.

The application server tier has two parts: the application presentation layer and the application logic layer. The application presentation layer is responsible for creating the request for the invocation of business logic hosted within the application logic layer. For HTML browser clients, the presentation layer is also responsible for providing the view navigation. The application presentation layer converts an action made by the user in the user interface into a WSIF message or EJB method invocation that the presentation layer then sends to the application logic layer. The application logic layer is responsible for performing the business process that fulfils the presentation layer request. A business process consists of a set of activities and may involve accessing and manipulating enterprise data and performing financial service procedures in the back-end enterprise tier. The application logic layer can use two mechanisms for performing the business process. If the application server tier is running on WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation, the application logic layer can use the Process Choreographer and work area features. If the application server tier is running on WebSphere Application Server, the application logic layer can use a Single Action EJB.

The back-end enterprise tier consists of enterprise level databases and legacy systems that provide existing business logic and services. The application logic layer communicates with these databases and systems through JCA connectors, database services, and formatters. The connectors, database services, and formatters form an interface so that toolkit applications do not impose any changes directly on these databases and systems. 

The design and portability of the product (a result of being written in Java) allows the application tier servers to exist at either the branch level (one server per branch), the regional level (one server per a group of branches), or even at a centralized level (a single server for the entire financial institution). These options provide the flexibility to achieve the right balance between the number of servers and network bandwidth, with no changes to application logic.