Synchronization. For example, two stores in a chain of retail stores maintain customer, product SKU, and product price information. One store maintains the information in a database and the other in a mainframe program. When information is added to or changed in the resource at one store, an integration application updates the resource at the other store.

Propagation. For example, a human resources (HR) person enters data for a new employee in a composite application and an integration application propagates the data to a human resources (HR) database, a retirement plan mainframe program, and an employee benefits application.

Composition. For example, an HR person requests a report on an employee through a composite application. An integration application gathers the data for the report from an HR database, a retirement plan mainframe program, and an employee benefits application, and then returns the data to the web application for display in report format.