Flow failures

At times, the InterChange Server Express system or its associated applications may fail. Successfully processing flows that carry data through the InterChange Server Express system is critical, so in a run-time environment it is critical to maintain data consistency. System failures such as system errors, data errors, and critical errors can cause flows to fail to process. The InterChange Server Express system has built-in capabilities that allow you to process system failures.

A system configuration, object definition, application-specific, or data consistency error can cause a flow to fail when the InterChange Server Express system is processing that flow. Improperly functioning InterChange Server Express components, such as business object mapping failures or the unavailability of a connector, can generate system errors, which cause flows to fail. Data inconsistencies, such as an isolation violation of application data during execution of a collaboration, generate data errors, which also cause flows to fail.

If an error occurs when a connector controller or a collaboration is processing a flow, the flow fails and is moved to the event resubmission queue. From here, you have the following choices:

For instructions on resolving failed flows, see "Working with failed events"..

Overview of failed transactional collaborations

System and data errors can cause a transactional collaboration to fail. When one of these errors occurs, the collaboration attempts a rollback. If the rollback of a collaboration's compensation steps fails, the collaboration is in an "in-doubt" state. If an error occurs during run-time recovery, the collaboration is put into a list of failed transactional collaborations owned by the corresponding collaboration. A failed transactional collaboration is a collaboration whose compensation steps failed to roll back.

After a transactional collaboration fails, you must resolve it. You can process a failed transactional collaboration by using Flow Manager or Failed Event Manager. For instructions on resolving failed transactional collaborations, see "Working with failed events"..

Steps for preventing failed transactional collaborations from pausing

The default behavior for a failed transactional collaboration is to pause. You can prevent failed transactional collaborations from pausing by adding a property called PAUSE_ON_COMPENSATION_FAILURE to the collaboration template and changing the setting from TRUE (default) to FALSE.

Perform the following steps to add the new property and change the setting to FALSE:

  1. In System Manager, double-click the collaboration template that failed. Process Designer Express opens.
  2. Double-click the Definitions icon under Site Wrapper. The Template Definitions window appears in the right-hand frame.
  3. Click the Properties tab.
  4. Click Add. A Name dialog box appears.
  5. Type PAUSE_ON_COMPENSATION_FAILURE in the Name field, then click OK. The PAUSE_ON_COMPENSATION_FAILURE property appears under the General Properties node in the left-hand pane.
  6. With PAUSE_ON_COMPENSATION_FAILURE selected in the left-hand pane, select Boolean from the Property Type list.
  7. Under Value, clear the IsDefaultVal check box in the True row, and select the IsDefaultVal check box in the False row.
  8. Click Apply.
  9. Close Process Designer Express.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2004