In MIF, communication between modules is governed by endpoints and connectors. Each communication protocol is implemented by a transport; here are some transports that MIF supports:

• VM - Virtual Machine: Communication between two modules in the same JVM. The communication that occurs is actually a Java method call.
• STREAM - I/O stream
• JMS - Java Messaging Service
• SFTP - Secure File Transport Protocol
• TCP - Transmission Control Protocol
• UDP - User Datagram Protocol
• CXF - Apache CXF web service

An endpoint represents a MIF module's inbound or outbound communication path to other modules or code running outside of MIF. Typically, we think of this communication happening over the network, but it can happen within the same JVM (e.g., the VM transport).

A connector represents a set of configuration properties for a communication protocol. Each type of transport has an associated connector. Usually, a default connector will be created for you behind the scenes. To configure special properties on a connector, you can explicitly create one. The JMS transport is one exception to the automatic creation of a default connector. You must always. explicitly create a JMS connector in order to specify the JMS server to connect to.

If there is only one connector for a given protocol in a MIF pipeline, all endpoints associated with that transport will use this connector. However, multiple connectors may exist for the same transport in a single pipeline. In this case, you need to set a reference to the connector on an endpoint so that MIF knows which set of transport properties to apply to the endpoint.