Software Integration Essentials

Application integration, APIs, web services, micro-service architecture, brokers, and queues… On the one hand, all these terms refer to the field of intersystem interaction design. Yet, on the other hand, an Analyst (either system or business) has to understand their meaning well – to be able to write sensible requirements for a complex solution assembled from stand-alone applications and/or services.

In this course, participants will learn the basics of approaches, technologies, and standards for software systems integration without diving deeply into the technical details. Completing this course will provide participants with a better understanding of the specific requirements associated with enabling multiple applications to work together. In particular, it will make it easier for participants to communicate with developers, architects, as well as vendors of the applications that need to be integrated.

The course provides an insight into various integration technologies and major integration platforms are used on the market. During the course, their strength and weaknesses will be discussed, as well as cases in which each of them would be more applicable. This will help participants not to “reinvent the wheel” every time it comes to integration, but instead use approaches and patterns that have already proven their effectiveness.

The tools used during the course (Swagger & Postman) will be useful for participants to explore existing interfaces and test newly created ones. During practical exercises, participants will gain experience in using Swagger to document requirements for interfaces in the OpenAPI format. Besides, participants will research/test a work of several examples of REST API.

One of them is a web service specially developed for the course. Participants will analyze requirements set for it, try to use it, and then – update requirements to improve the service usability and performance.

Thus, the skills and knowledge gained will allow participants to effectively use the necessary technologies and tools in their integration projects.

• To learn principles, patterns, and mechanisms of software systems integration;
• To get basic knowledge about protocols and data formats used in integration;
• To learn to design, describe, and test integration solutions;
• To get knowledge about tools used in the design of integration solutions.