Service Facade to Microsoft .NET: request-response pattern

Use the Microsoft .NET request-response pattern to integrate an application written for the Microsoft .NET platform with WebSphere Message Broker. You can use the pattern to make a .NET class available as a web service by using WebSphere Message Broker.

A diagram showing the behavior of the pattern. Requesting applications send web services requests to the broker. The pattern passes the requests to a .NET class and then returns the response from the class to the requesting applications as a web services response message.

Solution

An instance of the Microsoft .NET request-response pattern is configured with a class written in any of the programming languages supported by the Microsoft .NET platform; for example, C# or VB.NET. The pattern instance generates message flows that implement a web service facade to the .NET class. The pattern user can select a class from their .NET assembly to enable as a web service. The pattern user can also select the static methods on the class to use.

When a requesting application invokes the web service, the message flows generated by the pattern instance invoke a static method on the .NET class. The generated web service implements one WSDL operation for each static method on the .NET class.

Data from a requesting application in a web services request message are passed to the .NET class as input parameters. Output, reference and return value parameters from the .NET class are returned to the requesting application in the web services response message.

Generated Web Services

The pattern instance generates message flows that implement a web service. The pattern instance also generates a multi-file WSDL that represents the web services interface between a requesting application and WebSphere Message Broker.

The WSDL files generated by the pattern instance configure the SOAP input node in the generated message flows. The WSDL files can also be used by requesting applications to ensure SOAP requests are sent and received in the correct format.

The WSDL files are a WS-I compliant web services description. The first WSDL file contains a WSDL port type definition, and an operation for each static method selected in the .NET class. Each operation has an input message and an output message. The second WSDL file contains a SOAP service and port definition. The SOAP address of the web service is configured as a pattern parameter. The pattern instance also generates an XML schema file. The XML schema represents the data types for all input and output parameters for each WSDL operation. The schema file is included in the WSDL file using a standard WSDL include statement.

Deploying Web Services

The WSDL and the schema must both be deployed to Message Broker alongside the generated message flows. In WebSphere Message Broker Version 8.0 you do not need to import the WSDL file and the XML schema file into a message set before you deploy them to a broker.

Constraints on the use of the pattern
Tasks to complete before applying the pattern
Parameters for the pattern
Tasks to complete after generating the pattern