WebSphere® ESB includes Business Space powered by WebSphere, which provides a common interface for application users to create, manage and integrate Web interfaces across the IBM® WebSphere Business Process Management portfolio.
Business Space is a browser-based graphical user interface that lets application users customize content from products in the WebSphere Business Process Management portfolio. Application users (business users) are the users of the applications deployed on WebSphere ESB.
Business Space provides an Asynchronous JavaScript™ and XML (AJAX) interface using mashup technology to enable business users to create and customize user experiences. Mashups are Web pages created by combining Web applications (widgets), which mix together Web content to create novel interfaces. The widgets communicate with the WebSphere ESB runtime using Representational State Transfer (REST) interactions with common Web formats, such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and XML data.
Business users can customize Business Space widgets to view the runtime business data according to their preferences. Business Space administrators can create new spaces (collections of pre-configured pages), and mashup page content, in addition to the predefined scenarios that are shipped with Business Space. For example, these mashups act on specific business needs for the enterprise, such as assigning people to various tasks or adjusting business rules for different outcomes.
Business Space is shipped with WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere ESB, WebSphere Business Monitor, and WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server. Templates for predefined scenarios are enabled in Business Space when each product is installed. Business Space also includes information from WebSphere Business Services Fabric that business users can view and modify.
The following diagram shows the Business Space framework and products in the WebSphere Business Process Management portfolio. The top layer represents Business Space. The middle layer contains products that directly contribute content for Business Space: WebSphere Business Monitor, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus, WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Server, and WebSphere Business Services Fabric. The bottom layer represents products that indirectly contribute content through one of the middle-layer products: WebSphere Integration Developer and WebSphere Business Modeler.
For WebSphere ESB applications, Business Space provides pages for your business users to work with runtime artifacts. Business users can create mashups with data that they can view and modify.
Business Space provided with WebSphere ESB includes the Solution Management space, which is a collection of widgets for administrators to work with runtime artifacts. The space includes Health Monitor, for viewing a snapshot of the overall system health of your business solution.
In addition to the widgets related to WebSphere ESB applications, Business Space also includes Google Tools widgets and other widgets for viewing presentations, documents, spreadsheets, Web sites, and RSS feeds.
The Business Space framework is installed with WebSphere ESB. For stand-alone server profiles, you can configure Business Space with either the Profile Management Tool or the administrative console. If you use deployment environments or a remote database, you must configure Business Space using the administrative console Business Space Configuration page, or the Deployment Environment Configuration wizard.
To work with Solution Management widgets, you must configure System Representational State Transfer (REST) services. For more information, see "Enabling Business Space widget endpoints on the administrative console" in the WebSphere ESB information center.
After you have installed and configured Business Space for use with WebSphere ESB, you can create your own space with the Solution Management template in Business Space Manager. See "Business Space concepts" in the Business Space documentation.
After you have installed and configured Business Space, users of your runtime environment can open it from the following URL: http://host:port/BusinessSpace, where host is the name of the host where your server is running and port is the port number for your server.
If your team is also working with a WebSphere Portal environment, you can configure Business Space widgets to be available in WebSphere Portal. For more information about this configuration, see the related task "Configuring widgets for WebSphere Portal."