IPF overview
The Open eHealth Integration Platform (IPF) is an extension of the Apache Camel routing and mediation engine. It has an application programming layer based on the Groovy programming language and comes with comprehensive support for message processing and connecting systems in the eHealth domain. IPF provides domain-specific languages (DSLs) for implementing Enterprise Integration Patterns in general-purpose as well as healthcare-specific integration solutions. These DSLs are extensible via Groovy meta-programming. An example of an healthcare-related use case of IPF is the implementation of interfaces for transactions specified in IHE profiles, but you may also use it for developing integration solutions in other domains. IPF can be easily embedded into any Java application and additionally supports deployments inside OSGi environments. Failure recovery and high-availability features support application developers implementing non-functional requirements. The following table summarizes the IPF features.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Apache Camel | IPF is based on Apache Camel. For an overview of Camel's rich feature set (which can be fully used in IPF applications) refer to the project's integration patterns and integration components pages. |
| Groovy scripting layer | With IPF you define integration routes with the Groovy programming language. It is more than a mere usage of Camel's domain-specific language (internal DSL or fluent API) inside Groovy: Camel's native DSL has been extended to support e.g. the usage of closures (for inline definitions of message processors, routing rules etc.) and also provides a DSL extension mechanism to define custom extensions to the Camel DSL. |
| DSL extension mechanism | The DSL extension mechanism is a Groovy meta-programming-based mechanism for defining new DSL elements to be used in integration routes. This is especially useful if you want to provide custom language elements for re-occurring message processing patterns or if you want to design a project-specific message processing DSL (e.g. one that is related to the HL7 domain). |
| DSL extension index | An index of all predefined DSL extensions provided by IPF. |
| Core features | These are domain-neutral message processors and DSL extensions usable for general-purpose message processing. The core features also enhance existing Camel DSL elements for usage with Groovy-specific language elements such as closures. For XML message processing there is special Groovy XML support. |
| HL7 message processing | Basis for HL7 message processing is the HL7 DSL, the HAPI extensions and the HL7 validation DSL. These provides the basis for implementing HL7 message processing routes. |
| IHE support | A set of components for creating actor interfaces as specified in IHE profiles. IPF currently supports creation of actor interfaces for the IHE profiles XDS.a, XDS.b, PIX and PDQ. |
| CDA support | A domain-specific language for building and navigating CDA documents. This DSL supports the creation of structurally correct CDA documents by enforcing CDA-relevant schema definitions but without dealing with low-level XML details. |
| Flow management | A platform service to monitor, query, audit, replay and cleanup message flows. The management interfaces are based on JMX. |
| Platform manager | An Eclipse RCP-based front end to the flow manager. The platform manager also provides a generic JMX client. |
| OSGi support | Enables the deployment of IPF components (bundles) to OSGi platforms. IPF service bundles register platform services at the OSGi service registry for consumption by IPF applications. Extender bundles control the activation of DSL extensions inside an OSGi environment. A reference implementation of IPF on top of Eclipse Equinox is available as IPF runtime. |
| Event infrastructure | An infrastructure for unified publishing of system-events and application-events. Subscriber components can be configured to translate application events to e.g. Atom/RSS feeds or log files to mention a few. |
| Performance measurement | DSL and tools to determine the performance characteristics of IPF applications. These allow for measuring the processing time of messages for routes or route parts as well as the message throughput. Performance measurement results can be viewed with a web browser. |
| Large message support | Provides memory efficient processing of messages with large content sizes. |
| Quality of service | IPF provides extensions, guidance and solution blueprints (code examples) for implementing non-functional requirements. Covered topics are transactional messaging, flow management, load-balaning and high-availability. |
| Module adapters | An infrastructure for including platform-independent message processing libraries into platform-specific message processing routes. An alternative is Camel's bean integration mechanism. |
| Tutorials | A bunch of tutorials that help you get started with IPF. |
| Guidelines | Guidelines for IPF application development. For example, the DSL extensions guide describes how to write you own DSL extensions. |
| Project templates | Maven archetypes for most commonly used IPF project types, ranging from simple embedded integration solutions to cluster configurations supporting high-availability scenarios. Usage examples of IPF features are provided as well. |