Editing Enterprise service bus (section)

{{confused|Enterprise bus matrix}}
{{Short description|Communication system in a service-oriented architecture}}
[[File:ESB.svg|thumb|All customer services communicate in the same way with the ESB: the ESB translates a message to the correct message type and sends the message to the correct consumer service.]]

An '''enterprise service bus''' ('''ESB''') implements a communication system between mutually interacting software applications in a [[service-oriented architecture]] (SOA). It represents a [[software architecture]] for [[distributed computing]], and is a special variant of the more general [[client-server]] model, wherein any application may behave as server or client. ESB promotes agility and flexibility with regard to high-level protocol communication between applications. Its primary use is in [[enterprise application integration]] (EAI) of heterogeneous and complex service landscapes.