ECMS - Integration Server Overview and Resources

Integration Server makes ImageNow content and functionality available to third-party applications by enabling external customer applications that are coded in standard development languages, such as Java, C++, or C#, and that are also compatible with HTTP Web services, to send and receive data from ImageNow Server.

Integration Server is a middle-tier web service that provides communication over a network between ImageNow software and third-party applications. The architecture supports asynchronous and synchronous communications using standard XML and JSON Representational state transfer (REST) message formats. Integration Server is multi-threaded, which allows for concurrent execution of multiple client requests. For secure client-to-server and server-to-client communication, Integration Server supports SSL.

Third-party applications can use Integration Server to flexibly incorporate ImageNow functionality directly into products and enterprise systems by providing the required classes, functions, methods, subroutines, or other routines. Integration Server interacts seamlessly with ImageNow Server to increase efficiency with the use of your existing development tools.

Integration Server exposes ImageNow functionality through a multiplex of resources, such as Document resources, Folder resources, and Drawer resources. Each web resource includes a family of functions that Integration Server makes available to third-party applications, such as starting a session, copying a document, or routing a document.

The Integration Server approach to working with client applications is based on widely accepted standards. Integration Server uses a RESTful approach for Web services and HTTP/HTTPS transport for structured data exchange.

REST is an architectural style for message exchange that addresses the web as remote resources. In a RESTful application such as Integration Server, each URL points to a resource. This approach differs from SOAP in that SOAP exposes functionality as URL endpoints that contain functions that can be called. Unlike SOAP applications that are restricted to using GET or POST operations, REST-based applications include a greater range of operations: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.

RESTful applications are stateless, and no session state is stored on the server. The information required for a request is included in the request message itself. The client application can cache a resource representation, potentially improving application performance.