Preparing your individual development environment

As described in The life cycle of an interface, you will typically be responsible for developing a single business process interface, and will do so in a development environment you have prepared on a computer only you use, such as a laptop. Although the System Installation Guide for Windows contains most of the information you need to install and configure the required software on your computer, this section provides some suggestions for modifying your environment for more efficient and effective development.

Installing required software

Although IBM WebSphere InterChange Server requires a number of enterprise-class softwares to provide the integration infrastructure, you can typically run all the required software on a workstation or laptop-quality computer, provided that you do not expect to process a significant number of transactions through the system. Such a computer is adequate to support the development and unit-testing of components, but cannot support a large volume of flows. The following list addresses some of the required software:

Installation recommendations

Consider the following suggestions when you install the required software:

Working with InterChange Server in design mode

It is recommended that you start your local InterChange Server in design mode, which will enable you to incrementally assemble your integration components in a way that running in production mode would not. For more information, see InterChange Server modes.

Modifying batch files

It is recommended that you make the following changes to the start_server.bat batch file in your local development environment:

Configuring logging in a development environment

It is recommended that you direct the server logging output both to the console and to a file in your development environment for the following reasons:

For information on how to configure InterChange Server logging and tracing, see Configuring WebSphere InterChange Server.

Customizing your environment

Most developers work more efficiently when they customize their environment as described in the sections below.

Organizing your shortcuts

Most developers find it helpful to organize the shortcuts they use frequently to avoid having to use the program menu frequently. You might create a folder for the shortcuts on the desktop, or create a custom toolbar in the Windows taskbar. It is most helpful to include shortcuts to InterChange Server, any connectors that are needed, WSWB (System Manager), the database server administration tool, the WebSphere MQ console, System Monitor, a text editor, and so forth.

Modifying the properties of shortcuts

By default InterChange Server and connectors run in a console window with a small size, small screen buffer, and color scheme that is not conducive to reading. Do the following to modify their shortcuts:

  1. Right-click your InterChange Server or connector shortcut and choose Properties from the context menu.
  2. Click the Layout tab and make the following changes:
  3. Click the Colors tab and make the following changes:
  4. Click OK.

Configuring tools preferences

You should configure your tools preferences as described in Using Eclipse-based workbenches.

Setting your workspace

It is recommended that you set your workspace--the directory where projects you create in the workbench are stored by default--to a location that best suits your needs. Do the following to specify your workspace directory:

  1. Navigate to the bin directory of the product directory.
  2. Edit the file named startcsm.bat.
  3. Set the value after the -data option to the directory you want to be your default workspace. For instance, to set your workspace to a directory named Projects within the WebSphere InterChange Server product directory, the file would appear as below:
    setlocal
    set WSWB_EXECUTABLE=%1
    "%WSWB_EXECUTABLE%" -data "%CROSSWORLDS%"/Projects -vmargs 
    -Xbootclasspath/p:"%CROSSWORLDS%"\lib\vbjorb.jar 
    -Dorg.omg.CORBA.ORBClass=com.inprise.vbroker.orb.ORB 
    -Dorg.omg.CORBA.ORBSingletonClass=com.inprise.vbroker.orb.ORBSingleton 
    -DCWTools.home="%CROSSWORLDS%"\bin
    
  4. Save and close the file.

Creating your integration component libraries

It is recommended that you create the following integration component libraries:

Creating your user projects

It is recommended that you create the following integration component libraries:

Configuring connectors

You might install and run connectors in your local development environment to do some basic testing of your interface. Follow the recommendations in these sections to use connectors as best as possible in this context.

Using IDL as the transport protocol

As described in Installing required software, it can be running WebSphere MQ in your local development environment is not necessary and can be costly on performance. Instead, set the DeliveryTransport property of your connector definitions to the value IDL to use IIOP instead.

Using key polling

If you have a connector that is responsible for event notification, it must poll an event table to detect new events. The polling is necessary, but the messages written to the console window of the connector can push important troubleshooting information off screen. You can use key polling so that the connector only issues a poll call when you want it to. For more information on key polling and on configuring connectors, see Configuring connectors.

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