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Integration
Message Channels
Channel Adapter
Connect any application to a message channel — without modifying the application.
Intent & Description
Real-world Use Case
Legacy CRM system writes customer updates to a CUSTOMER_UPDATES DB table. Channel Adapter polls the table every 30 seconds, converts new rows to CustomerUpdated messages, publishes to Kafka, and marks rows as processed. Modern microservices consume from Kafka. CRM unchanged.
Source
📌 TL;DR
Channel Adapter = integration seam between legacy apps and modern messaging. Read from their DB/API, publish to your channel. No source code changes to the connected app required.
Advantages
- Integrate applications without touching their source code
- Adapters are the integration seam — change adapter, not the app
- Standard approach for connecting legacy systems to modern messaging
- Enables CDC (Change Data Capture) patterns for DB-backed systems
Disadvantages
- Polling adapters add latency — push-based adapters are more complex to build
- Adapter must track what has been processed (position, timestamp, watermark)
- Adapter failure means missed messages — needs its own monitoring and retry logic
- Tightly coupled to the connected application’’s native interface