Adapters

Since the Information Sharing System operates under an asynchronous information flow system, interfaces with existing data systems are viewed as either Extractors or Insertors.  A single adapter may provide both sets of functionality, but is not required to support synchronous transactions.

ISS Metadata associated with an information submission provides the ability to link the two parts of a Query-Response transaction.  All adapters interface with the ISS via XML packages.

In general, Extractors tend to be general-purpose, parameter-driven modules capable of feeding a wide variety of transactions to the ISS.  Insertors, on the other hand, must be much more application-aware since they may modify data that is interpreted by production programs.  The safest type of Insertor is one that generates an appropriate transaction and feeds it to the application logic for handling.  Frequently, however, the ISS provides functionality not available in current programs. In these cases the Insertor will perform database changes that do not adversely affect the existing applications.