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I am responsible for product X. Product X has bi-directional connectivity with other systems A and B.

When I am referring to data coming from A in to X, I can say:

  • "Inbound interface from A to X"
  • "Inbound from A to X"

Or I can give the directionality a codename and say that:

  • X1 = data coming in to X (implies from A)
  • X2 = data leaving X (implies to A)

I don't find either of these to be elegant solutions. What is a good, succinct way to reference the directionality/flow of information between 2 systems?

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  • Not an answer, but where I work we do this using diagrams of systems, with arrows, server names, boundaries etc. We also do it with use case diagrams where the system being described has the use cases and the interacting systems are described as actors. Of course, the use case text will then describe the flow in detail. Also in the system documentation, interactions are usually described in a more technical way, e.g. specifications for web services, file/mail interactions etc. I'm not sure who'd have any use for what you describe, and it could probably be replaced by a diagram...
    – Erk
    Commented May 25 at 22:46
  • … or you might refer to your in-house guides. Since you came here instead, please note that broadly, 'Inbound interface from A to X' refers to the mechanism; if you like, the pipeline. In that context, 'Inbound from A to X' refers to the content; if you like, the message carried by the pipeline.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Oct 8 at 17:51

2 Answers 2

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  • "Inbound interface from A to X"
  • "Inbound from A to X"

The informative part of both of these is A to X.

If I turned to this page from the index because I'm troubleshooting or looking up a specific function, I don't need to know anything else.

I certainly don't need to remember a code that is printed somewhere else in the book.

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A possible method is to use a direction indicator. This is the standard for the factory automation API:

E->H

E<-H

The first is "equipment to host". The second is "host to equipment".

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