Integration with Other Applications > Digital Product Traceability > Understanding the Architecture
  
Understanding the Architecture
The basic architecture integrating Windchill and external systems includes:
Windchill Server and Client
ThingWorx platform with Flow (API Gateway, OSLC Connector)
External OSLC server
This integration supports basic authentication.
For compatible release versions of these applications, see the Windchill Software Matrix on Reference Documents.
Windchill and external systems communicate with each other as shown in the illustration below.
ThingWorx acts as an API Gateway, where the Windchill interface requests to fetch resource data from the external OSLC server. ThingWorx then receives the request and fetches the data from the external OSLC server. The OSLC server then uses the external system Odata REST to fetch data.
The resource data from the external system then appears in Windchill. You can browse the external system to look for specific items and add a trace link to the Windchill traceable objects. For more information about trace links, see Working with Traces.