The "ports and adapters" ar­chi­tec­ture (aka "hexag­o­nal ar­chi­tec­ture")

Atomikos is de­signed along the ports and adapters/hexag­o­nal ar­chi­tec­ture as de­scribed here by Alis­tair Cock­burn.

Among oth­er things, this means that it is rel­a­tive­ly easy to:

• Im­ple­ment new trans­ac­tion APIs / stan­dards / mod­els
• Add new types of two-phase com­mit re­sources

Ex­am­ples of things we've been able to re­al­ize thanks to this:

• JTA (port) / XA (adapter)
• TCC (port/adapter)
• RMI (port/adapter)

The port and adapter mod­el is also an im­por­tant con­cept in the new book Im­ple­ment­ing Do­main-Driv­en De­sign. Our do­main is 2-phase com­mit. Our adapter is our Par­tic­i­pant mod­el. Our ports are all the ways you can in­ter­act with our core sys­tem.