Edge Component Pattern

Learn the Edge Component design pattern and its usage.

Intent

This pattern encapsulates endpoint-specific details and prevents them from leaking into the business logic of an integration flow. The Edge Component pattern is also known as Multiple Service Contracts.

Context and problem

Integration applications based on the Pipe and Filter architectural style divide a complex integration task into smaller independent tasks connected by channels. For small flows, it is not important how the processing steps are organized, but for large and complex flows, the flexibility offered by the Pipe and Filter style can lead to a messy spaghetti structure that is hard to maintain and change in the long term.

The Edge Component pattern helps us achieve consistency and reusability of the integration flow by isolating the business logic from the various transport endpoints.

A messaging channel receives messages from other systems through endpoints. Endpoints are the glue between disparate systems and support a variety of technologies. Message endpoints are technology-specific, and when they pass a message to a channel, the message and the surrounding metadata are also technology-specific. For example, ...