Developing integrations in App Connect Toolkit

You can use the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit (App Connect Toolkit) to develop an integration solution that comprises message flows and other resources that those flows need to transform, enrich, route, and process your business messages and data.

You can also both Designer and Toolkit to develop integration solutions that take advantage of both.

Using the App Connect Toolkit you can build powerful and if needed complex integration applications, services, and APIs.

Figure 1. The App Connect Enterprise Toolkit; get started with flows running on software
The App Connect Enterprise Toolkit; get started with flows running on software

The message flows that you develop in the toolkit can be deployed to integration servers or integration runtimes in IBM® Cloud Pak for Integration, or to integration servers in IBM App Connect Enterprise software or other App Connect Enterprise environments. If wanted, you can develop message flows that call other flows, and can be called by other flows, so can create truly hybrid integration solutions running across containerized and on-premises environments.

The toolkit provides capabilities to connect on-premises applications and systems, including: SAP, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel. Also, message flows can use the extensive range of connectors through flows developed in App Connect Designer to act on applications and systems including IBM Watson, Marketo, Salesforce, and SAP.

High-level steps to develop an integration solution from scratch

Developing for deployment on IBM Cloud Pak for Integration is the same as for deployment on other App Connect Enterprise environments.

Review the following high-level steps to develop an integration solution from scratch:

  1. Create an application. An application (and the special types: integration service and REST API) is the container for resources that are required to develop your solution.
  2. Optional: Create a library to contain a logical grouping of related code, schemas, message models, and other resources that can be reused.
  3. Optional: To include one or more libraries of resources in your application, create references to those libraries.
  4. Create one or more message flows in your application as the sequence of steps to process your business data, adding message flow nodes and configuring their connections and properties.
  5. Create other resources that you need in the application and library, such as message models that enable App Connect Enterprise to understand the message formats to be processed.
  6. Package the integration solution into a BAR file that you can import into IBM App Connect in containers. This creates an integration server for the BAR file.

Accessing your App Connect Toolkit instance

The App Connect Toolkit is part of App Connect Enterprise software, which is an bundled component of IBM Cloud Pak for Integration.

When you install App Connect Enterprise software on Windows or Linux, an instance of the App Connect Toolkit is installed by default.

Learn more

For information about installing App Connect Enterprise software, see Installing IBM App Connect Enterprise.

For detailed information about using the App Connect Toolkit to develop integration solutions, see Developing integration solutions.