The majority of your time is spent working with integration components when you implement a WebSphere Business Integration Server Express integration system. Although this guide does not go into detail about how to develop individual components, this section does cover how to launch the designer tools, how to start creating new components, how to start modifying existing components, and how to work with the few components that are developed in System Manager.
For more information on how to develop integration components, see the following guides:
For information on working with components that you have developed and deployed to an InterChange Server Express instance, see Working with components in an InterChange Server Express repository.
When you create components, keep in mind the following general guidelines and requirements
In the interest of backward compatibility, IBM enforces only a few naming requirements. However, because naming is subject to restrictions from underlying system components, follow the conventions in this guide. For example, Java imposes restrictions on Java class names, and your operating system and database likely have restrictions on the length of and characters used in file names.
This section describes the different ways you can launch each of the designer tools. You can use the designer tools to create new components or to open and modify existing components.
To launch Business Object Designer Express, do one of the following:
For more information on Business Object Designer Express, see the WebSphere InterChange Server: Business Object Development Guide.
To launch Connector Configurator Express, do one of the following:
For more information on Connector Configurator Express, see Configuring connectors.
To launch Map Designer Express, do one of the following:
For more information on Map Designer Express, see the WebSphere InterChange Server: Map Development Guide.
To launch Relationship Designer Express, do one of the following:
For more information on Relationship Designer Express, see the WebSphere InterChange Server: Map Development Guide.
To launch Process Designer Express, do one of the following:
For more information on Process Designer Express, see the WebSphere InterChange Server: Collaboration Development Guide.
For the following components, launching their respective designer tools as described in Launching designer tools allows you to create a new component of that type:
Some components do not have dedicated designer tools, so you create them in interfaces displayed by System Manager. To create new collaboration objects, database connection pools, and schedules see Table 4:
Component | Technique | For more information, see... |
---|---|---|
Collaboration object | Right-click the Collaboration Objects folder in the WebSphere Business Integration System view and select Create New Collaboration Object from the context menu | Right-clicking to configure InterChange Server Express properties |
Database connection pool | Right-click the Database Connection Pools folder in the WebSphere Business Integration System view and select Create New Database Connection from the context menu | Configuring database connection pools |
Schedule |
|
WebSphere InterChange Server: System Administration Guide |
Web service | To designate a Web service as an integration component, right-click theWebServices folder in the WebSphere Business Integration System view and select Register New Web Service from the context menu. | Designating web services as integration components |
This section describes how to register and invoke a web service as an integration component in System Manager and contains the following sections:
Web services are self-contained, modular, distributed, dynamic applications that can be described, published, located, and invoked over the network to create products, processes, and supply chains. They can be local, distributed, or Web-based. Web services are built on top of open standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP, Java, HTML, and XML. Web services use new standard technologies such as SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for messaging, and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language) for publishing and discovery.
Using System Manager, you can register a web service as a component of an integration component library (ICL). The registration process lists the web service as a component under Integration Component Libraries and automatically generates the business objects that InterChange Server Express will use to communicate with the web service. You can also use System Manager to test the registered web service before deploying it to the server.
In System Manager, use the Register a new web service wizard to register a web service.
Option | Description |
---|---|
Enter a URL for WSDL file | Allows you to specify the exact web service you want to register |
Search UDDI registry for a web service | Allows you to specify a UDDI registry that you can further search to locate the web service. |
After you have registered a web service you can view it in System Manager.
All the methods of the web service, whether you intend to use them or not, are registered and appear on the Available Operations page, in the Operation column.
The business objects that were created for each method when you registered the web service (see Registering a web service) are listed under the Input BO and Output BO columns.
If you manually create customized business objects for use with a web service, when you deploy your project you must include certain business objects that get generated automatically when you register that web service.
Each web service that you register requires some customized business objects in order to function properly. When you register a new web service, a default set of these business objects is generated automatically, and placed in the business objects folder. You can recognize these business objects by the WS prefix in their names:
WS_<name of webservice>
These automatically-generated business objects can be used in maps and collaborations just like any other business objects. Using them can save you the manual work of creating your own business objects. You can choose to create and use your own business objects instead--but because of certain dependencies between objects, if you choose to use your own customized business objects with a web service, you will also need to manually deploy the following business objects from your System Manager project to the server:
If you do not do this, after you deploy the project and start the server, you may see the following error message:
BusOBj definition xxx not found
You can test a registered web service before deploying it to the integration server.
To modify business objects, maps, relationships, and collaboration templates you can do the following:
See Table 5 for information on how to modify collaboration objects, database connection pools, and schedules:
Component | Technique | For more information, see... |
---|---|---|
Collaboration object | Double-click the collaboration object in the Collaboration Objects folder in the WebSphere Business Integration System view | Right-clicking to configure InterChange Server Express properties |
Database connection pool | You cannot modify a database connection pool. You may modify some properties of the pool component, but cannot change definition elements such as the database to which the pool connects. | Configuring database connection pools |
Schedule |
The "Schedule" interface appears and allows you to modify schedules that have been defined. |
WebSphere InterChange Server: System Administration Guide |
You can import integration components into a library from an InterChange Server Express repository.
Do the following to import components into an integration component library from an InterChange Server Express repository:
System Manager displays the "Import the additional components from the server" wizard, as shown in Figure 13.
Do the following to import components into an integration component library by using drag-and-drop techniques among the System Manager views:
System Manager attempts to import the components to the specified integration component library. Messages and errors are displayed in the Console view.
You can export integration components to a .jar file package, as described in Exporting components to a package using System Manager. This makes it easy to migrate components between environments, share them with other developers, and submit them to technical support.
Do the following to import components into an integration component library from a package:
System Manager displays the "Import Repository File" wizard, as shown in Figure 14.
If you launched the "Import from Repository File" wizard from a library other than the one into which you want to import the components, you can change the destination this way instead of closing the wizard and launching it again.
Maps, collaboration objects, database connection pools, connectors, and InterChange Server Express have properties that you can modify to change the behavior of those components. To modify the properties of a component, right-click either the component in an integration component library or a shortcut to it in a user project and select Properties from the context menu. System Manager displays a dialog to configure the properties of the component.
For more information about map properties, see Right-clicking to change map configuration properties.
For more information about collaboration object properties, see Right-clicking to change configuration properties.
For more information about database connection pools, see Right-clicking to change database connection pool properties.
For more information about connectors, see Right-clicking to configure connectors.
For more information about configuring InterChange Server Express, see Right-clicking to configure InterChange Server Express properties.
The Map Designer Express tool has a feature that allows you to create maps and reverse maps automatically between business objects that have source and destination attributes with similar attributes. To do this, Map Designer Express looks for attributes with matching names between the source and destination business objects.
An important feature in Map Designer Express is the ability to automatically generate maps between business objects having source and destination attributes with the same names.
System Manager enables you to enhance this basic matching process by creating multiple synonyms for attribute names of business objects.
This is done at the ICL project level in System Manager. The synonyms created are attached to the ICL, and are used by the map automation algorithm when it is invoked by Map Designer Express.
After they have been created, the synonyms from one ICL can be exported to a file (*.syn) that can be imported into another ICL. To export or import a synonyms file, right-click on the ICL, and click Synonyms > Export or Synonyms > Import.
Following are the steps for creating synonyms.
For a complete discussion of map automation, see the Map Development Guide.
To add synonyms for attributes present in business objects, perform the following steps:
Figure 1 shows the Synonyms option in the Context menu.
Result: After you click Edit, the Synonyms window opens.
Figure 2 shows the Synonyms window.
Result: Map Designer Express will search for all the synonyms for a given attribute and perform automatic mapping when it finds the matches.
Tip: Use the same procedure to edit attribute and synonym entries and to add comma strings under the Synonyms column.
Example: The synonym configuration shown in Figure 2 will have the following results:
This topic described the procedure for setting up the synonyms in System Manager. For information about how to utilize the map automation feature when you work with Map Designer Express, see the Map Development Guide.
There is a context menu item named Validate Connection for database connection pool components. For more information about this menu item, see Validating database connection pools..
You can compile maps and collaboration templates in System Manager, which is convenient because components must be compiled to be deployed or exported to a package. System Manager uses asynchronous compile, which means that while you are compiling one component, System Manager is able to perform another task.
When compiling components, item-based progress reporting is used, as well as a progress bar. This information is held in a cache table on the server. The progress status is updated after the operation is completed on each artifact.
Do one of the following to compile a map or collaboration template:
Do one of the following to compile all the maps or collaboration templates in an integration component library:
To compile a map with its submaps, right-click the map in an integration component library or the shortcut to a map in a user project and select Compile with submap(s) from the context menu.