Bridge Utilities for Divergent IT Infrastructure Integration
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing solutions struggle to enable seamless information processes across divergent information technology and communication infrastructures, particularly in healthcare settings, due to complexities and costs associated with deployment, maintenance, and interoperability, which can lead to service interruptions and increased resource burdens.
Innovation Solution
A computer network system with bridge utilities that utilize anchor and span components to establish secure, on-demand communications across divergent IT infrastructures, enabling hierarchical relationships and data translations, while supporting decentralized architectures and optimizing data flow through Quality of Service layers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional integration methods are used to connect divergent IT infrastructures, then information exchange can be achieved, but deployment complexity and maintenance costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a message broker as an intermediary component that mediates communication between divergent IT infrastructures. The broker receives messages from source systems, processes them through routing rules and transformations, and delivers them to target systems. This intermediary approach enables information exchange without direct integration between systems, significantly reducing deployment and maintenance complexity while maintaining reliable communication.
Solution Approach 2:
The integration architecture is segmented into independent modular components including message brokers, adapters, routing rules, and transformation services. Each component can be deployed, configured, and maintained independently. This segmentation allows organizations to integrate systems incrementally and modify individual components without affecting the entire integration landscape, reducing overall complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If custom integration solutions are implemented for each organization pair, then specific communication requirements are met, but scalability and adaptability decrease
Solution Approach 1:
The message broker is designed as a universal platform that can handle multiple communication protocols, data formats, and integration patterns through configurable routing rules and adapters. A single broker instance can serve multiple source and target systems with different requirements, enabling the system to scale without requiring custom integration solutions for each organization pair. The universal design maintains adaptability through configuration rather than code changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The integration behavior is controlled through configurable parameters including routing rules, transformation templates, and adapter settings rather than hard-coded logic. This allows the system to adapt to different communication requirements by changing parameters and configurations rather than deploying custom solutions. Organizations can scale the integration by adding new source or target systems and configuring appropriate routing rules without modifying the underlying integration logic.
3Speed
If direct connections are established between systems, then communication speed is maximized, but security risks and interoperability issues increase
Solution Approach 1:
The message broker serves as a secure intermediary that all communications must pass through. Source systems send messages to the broker, which validates them against security policies, applies necessary transformations, and routes them to authorized target systems. This intermediary approach maintains communication speed while eliminating direct connections between systems, thereby reducing security risks and interoperability issues. The broker can enforce authentication, authorization, encryption, and message validation centrally.
Solution Approach 2:
The broker implements feedback mechanisms including message acknowledgment, error handling, and routing confirmation. When a message is sent, the broker provides feedback on delivery status, errors encountered, and routing decisions. This feedback loop enables real-time monitoring and control of communications, allowing the system to maintain high-speed communication while quickly responding to and correcting security or interoperability issues before they propagate.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer system is provided that enables secure, on demand communications across IT infrastructures that may be divergent, and that may be associated with legacy components, different communication protocols, and frequent system changes. The system includes one or more bridge utilities, each bridge utility comprising two or more anchor components, each anchor component being connected to one or more associated devices or computer systems, the anchor components automatically locating and communicating with one or more span utilities, wherein the anchor components and the span utilities execute functionality for automatically creating and configuring connections between them so as to establish the bridge utility, and wherein the anchor components and span utilities are operable to send and receive signalling communications between them for configuring anchor to anchor connections, including hierarchical connections for implementing hierarchical relationships between the associated devices or computer systems, thereby establishing peer-to-peer anchor associations and parent-to-child anchor associations; and once data connections are established between anchor components in a peer-to-peer anchor association (“peer anchor components”), data communications between peer anchor components carry communications automatically between their associated devices or computer systems on a secure and on demand basis; and wherein the one or more bridge utilities enable secure, on demand communications across the IT infrastructures, even if these are divergent, thereby giving effect to information processes across such IT infrastructures.