Cloud Integration Patterns

Succeed Insurance wants to understand the different options they have for integrations. Knowing these different integration patterns will ensure that the correct integration type is selected.

Learning Objective

The learning objective for this module is to explain the most common integration patterns.

Common Patterns

There are a number of common patterns. They fall into two categories: Synchronous and Asynchronous.

Synchronous is a blocking architecture, meaning that you can only execute one thing at a time. Think of a phone call. You can only be on one phone call at a time.

Asynchronous is a non-blocking architecture, so the execution of one task isn't dependent on another. Tasks can run simultaneously. Think about sending text messages to friends. You can text many people while waiting for each reply.

Synchronous Patterns

The following are the synchronous integration patterns:

Outbound Proxy - Calls are sent out to an external system and answered immediately. The best example of this is a web service call. Common uses of this are Auto Policy Prefill, Address lookup, Retrieve Document.

Inbound Gateway - This is where an external system is calling an InsuranceSuite application and is expecting an immediate response. This again, is typically a web service call. Some examples of this would be Process API (For example FNOL, Real-time payment), Experience API, Coverage Verification.

Asynchronous Patterns

The following are the asynchronous integration patterns:

Outbound 1-Way - This pattern is used when InsuranceSuite wants to fire off an event but is not expecting a reply. Some examples of this are Publish Claim/Policy events to internal apps via iPaas, Outbound Payment file.

Outbound with callback - Calls using this pattern are expecting a reply to their request, but the reply is sent at a later time after the initial call is completed. Examples of this pattern are Fraud Scoring, Create document, Police Report, Document production.

Inbound 1-Way - This is where an external system makes a call to an InsuranceSuite application but is not expecting a callback. This would be used in cases such as processing a Glass claims file or an Inbound payment file.

Inbound with callback - This is where an external system makes a call to an InsuranceSuite application and is expecting a callback, but the reply is sent later after the initial calls processing is completed. Examples of this pattern are the Batch processing APIs.

For more information on integration patterns, check the Guidewire documentation site.

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