WebSphere

Enabling Business Space widgets manually for remote endpoints

All widgets required for your product are installed with Business Space, but you must register the endpoints needed by the widgets before your team can use them in Business Space. You can register the endpoints for some widgets on the System REST Service Endpoints administrative console page. However, endpoints for WebSphere® Business Modeler Publishing Server widgets, WebSphere Business Monitor widgets, and WebSphere Business Services Fabric widgets must be registered manually in the endpoints files.

Before you begin

Topic scope: This topic applies to the following products:
  • WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server
  • WebSphere Business Monitor
  • WebSphere Business Services Fabric
Before you complete this task, you must have completed the following tasks:
  • Installed the product.
  • Configured a profile, and configured Business Space on that profile.
  • Configured the database tables (if you are using a remote database or deployment environment).
  • For WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server, you must first update the Endpoints table in the WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server database. Set the Server_Name column to the Business Space Internet Protocol and the Port column to the Business Space port.

About this task

You register endpoints for two main reasons: configuring endpoint locations, and making endpoints available to Business Space.

By default, endpoint registration files are configured as relative locations. Relative locations identify a path within a web module that is assumed to be installed where Business Space is installed. The web module is identified by its context root, and is installed by your product. You must configure endpoint locations for the following situations:
  • The product, with its widget web module, is installed to a different location than where Business Space is installed. You must change the relative location to an absolute location by adding a protocol, host, and port that identifies the location of the product and its web module.
  • An administrator changes the context root of the web module (for example, to avoid a collision with another web module using the same context root). You must change the context root in the endpoint to the new name.
  • The Business Space server sits on a clustered environment for high availability, is behind a firewall, or is on Web server with URL rewriting. You must change the endpoint location to the URL that identifies your public access point.

Endpoints are registered during product installation when installing Business Space on a stand-alone server profile. However, if you install Business Space on a separate server, in a highly available environment, or in a deployment environment, you must add the endpoint registration files to the server where Business Space is installed to register the service endpoints for the widget. For widgets that are not included in the System REST Service Endpoints administrative console page to register the endpoints, you must first configure them manually by modifying the endpoint registration files.

Endpoint registration files are bundled with each product and are added during the installation of the product. The following products have widgets with endpoints that must be registered manually by editing the endpoint registration files. You edit one or more of the following files, based on the products you have installed, and the widgets you are using with Business Space:
  • WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server: pubserverEndpoints.xml
  • WebSphere Business Monitor: monitorEndpoints.xml
  • WebSphere Business Monitor with Alphablox: monitorABXEndpoints.xml and monitorEndpoints.xml
  • WebSphere Business Services Fabric: fabricEndpoints.xml
If you also have WebSphere Process Server or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus installed, and you want to use WebSphere Process Server or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus widgets in the same Business Space with the other product widgets, check to see where WebSphere Process Server or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus is installed. If it is installed on a different cell than Business Space, you must edit those specific REST service endpoints files in addition to the endpoints files for your other products. (Otherwise, WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus endpoints are configured on the System REST Service Endpoints administrative console page.) Edit the following endpoints files manually if WebSphere Process Server or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus is installed on a different cell than Business Space:
  • wpsEndpoints.xml (for WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus widgets)
  • bpcEndpoints.xml (for business processes and human tasks)
  • wsumEndpoint.xml (for user membership)
  • hmEndpoints.xml (for the Health Monitor widget)
  • bcmEndpoints.xml (for the WebSphere Process Server Business Calendar Manager widget)
  • smEndpoints.xml (for the WebSphere Process Server Security Manager widget)

If you are an administrator, you can register endpoints and enable widgets by performing the following steps.

Procedure
  1. Locate the endpoint registration files in the install_root/BusinessSpace/registryData directory. The file names all end with Endpoints.xml or Endpoint.xml.
  2. For each endpoint file that you are configuring, make a backup copy.
  3. Configure the endpoints as needed by editing the endpoint registration files. Each endpoint in the endpoint file is designated by a <tns:Endpoint> block. Identify the block that you want to change.
    Tip: If you don't intend to activate some endpoints, you can remove them from the file to prevent confusion.

    The location identified by an endpoint is specified in <tns:url>. This value is a path in a web module, specified as a full or relative HTTP URL. By default, the URL is relative. Change this to a full URL path, for example, https://virtualhost.com:virtualport/rest/bpm/htm or http://host1:9445/WBPublishingDRAFT/, where the protocol, host, and port identify how the product web module can be accessed.

    Note: The secure protocol https: is set by default. If you plan to deploy a secured environment, make sure to enable both the administrative and the application security so that the widgets work correctly. For more information about application security, see "Setting up security for Business Space."
    To locate the port number for the server, perform the following steps:
    • Log in to the administrative console.
    • Click Servers > Application Servers.
    • Click the server for which you want to find the port number, and then expand the Ports section.
    All applications use the same port as shown in either the wc_defaulthost (unsecure host) parameter or the wc_defaulthost_secure (secure host) parameter.
    Note: If you are using an HTTP server to access your web modules for load balancing, use the host name and port settings of the HTTP server.
  4. Create the following directory (if it does not already exist): profile_root/BusinessSpace/registryData/ (where profile_root is typically install_root/profiles/profile_name or install_root/pf/profile_name) and copy the endpoint registration file to that directory.
  5. Copy the endpoint registration file to the same directory on every node in the cluster where Business Space is deployed.

Example

The following example endpoint file is for WebSphere Business Monitor.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- START NON-TRANSLATABLE -->
<tns:BusinessSpaceRegistry
xmlns:tns="http://com.ibm.bspace/BusinessSpaceRegistry"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://com.ibm.bspace/BusinessSpaceRegistry
BusinessSpaceRegistry.xsd ">
  
  <tns:Endpoint>
    <tns:id>{com.ibm.wbimonitor}monitorServiceRootId</tns:id>
    <tns:type>{com.ibm.wbimonitor}monitorServiceRootId</tns:type>
    <tns:version>1.0.0.0</tns:version>
    <tns:url>rest/</tns:url>
    <tns:name>Location of backing services for Monitor widgets
</tns:name>
<tns:description>Location of backing services for Monitor widgets
</tns:description>

  </tns:Endpoint>
  
</tns:BusinessSpaceRegistry>
<!-- END NON-TRANSLATABLE -->

Consider the following when modifying the endpoints:
  • <tns:id>: The ID can be any string but must be unique for all registered endpoints. Ensure that this ID is unique when you are adding additional endpoints. The ID, type, and version should not be changed because registered widgets reference those values.
  • <tns:url>: If the URL is relative, then it is assumed that the REST service endpoint is co-located with the Business Space server. Update this field with an absolute URL if your endpoint is on a remote system. Ensure that you have https as the transfer protocol if your REST endpoint is secured.
  • <tns:name>: Type a meaningful name to your endpoint that helps identify your endpoint.
  • <tns:description>: Type a meaningful description that further details the nature of the data set that this endpoint is working on.

Similarly you can also change registered widgets. You can remove a widget that you don't want users to be able to access.

For example, to remove the Google Gadgets widget, create a widget registration file that contains the action of deleting the widget, called deleteGoogleGadgetsWidget.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tns:BusinessSpaceRegistry xmlns:tns="http://com.ibm.bspace/
BusinessSpaceRegistry"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://com.ibm.bspace/BusinessSpaceRegistry
BusinessSpaceRegistry.xsd ">
  <tns:Widget action="delete">
    <tns:id>{com.ibm.bspace}googlegadget</tns:id>
    <tns:version>1.0.0.0</tns:version>
  </tns:Widget>
</tns:BusinessSpaceRegistry>

This file is based on googleWidgets.xml file that is in the install_root/BusinessSpace/registryData directory. Note that only a minimum of information was copied from googleWidgets.xml to the new file, for example, the minimum lines from the widget entry needed to identify the Google Gadget widget (its identifier and version). Because no changes are being made to the widget categories or other widget defined in googleWidgets.xml, those entries are not needed in the new file. Note that the <tns:Widget> element has an added action attribute for deleting this widget from Business Space. This action attribute can also be added to <tns:Category> to delete a widget category identified by ID, or to <tns:Endpoint> to delete an endpoint identified by ID and version.

After creating deleteGoogleGadgetsWidget.xml, copy it to profile_root/BusinessSpace/registryData/ (where profile_root is typically install_root/profiles/profile_name or install_root/pf/profile_name). Create the directory if it does not already exist.

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Timestamp icon Last updated: 22 June 2010


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