IT332: Integrative Programming and Technologies

Study Notes

Integration of software refers to techniques for combining existing software components to form a complete system.
Integrative programming deals with integration approaches and techniques that connect different components of IT infrastructure to enable secure, intra and inter-application collaboration.

Application integration assists in the unlimited sharing of data and business processes among any connected applications or data sources without making major changes to the applications or data structures.
System Integration is the process of combining two or more systems, subsystems, or components to function properly.
Functional Integration is an inter-system communication where the integrated system provides new functionality or uses new technology while preserving original system functionality.

The integration model defines how applications will be integrated by defining the nature of and mechanisms for integration.
Presentation Integration Model integrates new software through the existing presentations of the legacy software.
Data Integration Model integrates software through access to the data created, managed, and stored by the software.

Heterogeneous integration: each application implements its own data model, requiring mappings and transformations.
File Transfer: one application writes a file that another application later reads, requiring agreement on filename, location, format, and timing.
Shared Database: a single physical database shared by different applications running on different platforms.
Remote Procedure Invocation: one application exposes its functionality to be accessed remotely by other applications.
Middleware: software that connects applications or software components.

Internet Protocol (IP) designed to allow multiple routes between any two points and to route packets of data around damaged routers.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is the backbone of HTTP/HTTPS protocol used to load web pages.
Window: a field in TCP Packet Structure that refers to the amount of data that a sender can transmit before requiring an acknowledgment from the receiver.
Time-to-Live: maintains a counter that gradually decrements down to zero, at which point the datagram is discarded.
Header Checksum: ensures IP header integrity.

XML element: everything from the element's start tag to the element's end tag.
XML Schemas (XSD): used to validate XML documents, supporting data types and namespaces.
XML validator: used to syntax-check XML documents.
DTD: can be added to XML documents to define the structure and organization of the document.

HTML DOM defines a standard way for accessing and manipulating HTML documents.
XMLHttpRequest object can be used to request data from a web server to update a web page by reloading the page.

Design Patterns: also called micro-architecture, described in the Gang of Four (GoF) book.
API: sets of requirements that govern how one application can talk to another.

Abstract class: a class that contains one or more abstract methods.
Version control: enables multiple people to simultaneously work on a single project, with features such as rolling back to previous versions and understanding bug reports.