BECS - Connectors


1 BECS Connectors concept


1.1 General info
Every integration is working with wide range of external applications. In daily integration practice is needed to address need of connectivity to particular system or integration edge in the most effective way. The key aspects which needs to be considered are:

Integration team in Bentley BECS group has more than 25 years of experience in integration field on worldwide scope. We have been very precisely deploying actual BECS Connector principle to minimize any risks on usage and totally avoid any hidden unwanted requirements to user integration team.

1.2 What is BECS Connector concept?
BECS is open and very powerful platform used in wide range of industrial areas and business scenarios. Based on this we implement one and only way how BECS is talking to any external system called BECS Connector concept.

This concept is based on 3 major essential principles:

​​​​​​​1.2.1 Use only approved system vendor integration layers
Every connector is based purely on officially published integration layer right from vendor of connected system. Simply said every BECS Connector simply encapsulate existing recommended integration layer of system vendor. This will give us the proven, fully vendor supported and easy to certify way of communication with 3rd party system, which dramatically speeds up the new integration implementation process, optimize TCO and makes interesting ROI for any integration projects.

• Adaptation of “connector independency”
In deployment of any BECS Connector we are always searching for possibility to create connector independent from concrete version of vendor 3rd part system. This is possible by building “metadata on demand” type of BECS Connectors, which mean that connector is not using concrete set of vendor functions (for example COM SOAP functions and APIs) and instead of it build BECS Connector with internal “metadata intelligence” where connector has implemented two general usage stages in using:

• BECS Connector Initialize stage
This is the first phase in using connector (actually performed during "drag and drop" of BECS system object):

In this phase BECS Connector actively opens vendor source interface layer definitions and read actually enabled versions of interface functions:

Thanks to this is connector always up to date and allows to read any actual vendor’s function = BECS Connector is version or release independent (this is the reason why for example our SAP connector is totally independent of SAP version or flavor). Of course, not all of connectors are possible to use this way.

• BECS Connector Execution stage
This is the real “run” phase where any interface function selected by BECS Solution Architect is executed and performs vendor’s defined action:

​​​​​​​1.1.2 Fully support vendor recommended security
As is probably clear from previous section using only proven and recommended way of integration right from vendor of particular system allows to BECS (and all its users) to apply relevant security right by vendor without entering any non-vendor approved way or another user or security management.

​​​​​​​1.2.3 Be open to any new connector
Integration is live organism and brings “need of new system connectivity” challenge on fly. On many cases is required to allow new connector development to 3rd party, developers to “home-made” system or any of partner knowing all concepts of required system better that BECS Architect and his team.

Knowing all those specifics BECS brings unique method for Rapid Connector Deployment (RCD) with full BECS owned connector deployment methodology including:

To learn more, please visit the Methodology for creating BECS Connectors subpage here.

• Real experience with RCD
Thanks to this concept we have proven on practice that new BECS Connector development is question of days and it can be done by any external system team skilled in .NET development without knowledge of BECS itself.

1.3 General documentation of BECS Connectors
To make process of adaptation and using of BECS Connectors easier and smoother there is 24 x 7 accessible BECS knowledge site contains not only with full documentation to every connector, real videos and guides how to deploy new project with this BECS Connector and how to use it on practice, but also with latest version of connector for easy download and update:

2. Certifications and vendor validations of BECS Connectors
Using vendor recommended and proved way of integration opens fantastic way to be a member of certification or validation programs. Based on all above is clear that certification or validation process is smooth and easy, which is reflected on (for example) highest level of certification for SAP ECC and SAP HANA achieved every year:

3. Actual BECS Connectors
As we stated, BECS is a widely used robust integration platform, which means that also actual BECS connector family needs to address wide range of integration needs. Having said that BECS has two general types of connectors on place:

3.1 Functional Connectors
This sub family of connector consist of all connectors specifically designed for concrete system. As we said connector can be independent of system version or flavor (as SAP for example is), but you cannot use any of connector for different 3rd party system.

Here all connectors mostly for following system types:

3.2 Generic Connectors
In many cases BECS does not need to talk to specific system, but to generally defined connectivity. For example, to work with file, any WEB open standard, Queue or Database. This is the meaning of this category where you can find connectors for:

3.3 Support of Open Standards
Major mission of BECS Connector concept is to minimize all possible obstacles on the way of integration. We understand integration as essential, but mostly as important part of your general business process enabling approach.

We are always trying to support open standard in any BECS Connector if possible. This will always allow to cover wider range of systems than only partner specific, what is giant benefit in general interoperability concept, indeed.

Because BECS covers wide range of open standards, we are sure that you can imagine them from each BECS Connector area, better is always to talk about requested standard in case of need.

Briefly BECS covers two types of open standards:

3.3.1 General Open standards
Here are all of the standards for general usage, like file processing standards (CSV, XML, JSON, …), general interface standards (API, COM, DCOM) security and authentication standards (KERBEROS, SNC, LDAP,…).

3.3.2 Industry or vendor specific standards
In this category is the most standards adapted in BECS, such as vendor standards (like SAP BAPI, RFC, ALE, EDI or wide range of Microsoft standards – from file formats like Office standard format, via communication such as MS ARR, MS DTDL to security,…)

On the other hand, there are open standards from many consortiums such as ISBN, MIMOSA, W3C or OS Geo (almost all raster spatial and vector format) and finally production standards like Industry 4 standards.