Connector startup

In an InterChange Server system, a connector has the following components, each of which must be started for the connector to run:

A connector agent communicates with a particular InterChange Server at startup and throughout the time that the connector agent executes. When you start a connector agent, you supply the name of an InterChange Server. The first thing that the connector agent does is contact InterChange Server, to requests its own configuration settings and the business object definitions that it is configured to support.

An InterChange Server need not be running when you start a connector agent. However, the connector agent cannot perform any useful work until it obtains the information it needs to initialize. If you start a connector agent when its InterChange Server is not running, the connector agent repeatedly attempts to contact the server.

Before a connector agent can connect to an application, it must receive its configuration and download its business object definitions from the InterChange Server repository. It also obtains a list of collaboration event subscriptions that it must support.

The following figure illustrates the connector agent's three-step startup.



Figure 28. Connector startup

The connector agent performs its startup tasks in this sequence:

  1. Contacts the InterChange Server for configuration information and business object definitions.
  2. Connects to the application.
  3. Contacts the connector controller for a list of subscriptions.

A connector downloads its business object definitions and certain of its configuration properties, such as its application user name and password, only at startup time. The values of some other properties, such as the property that controls connector tracing, can be changed dynamically.

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