Level: Intermediate Wolfgang Kulhanek (kulhanek@us.ibm.com), IBM Worldwide Technical Sales Leader for WebSphere Business Integration Server, IBM Software Group
11 Aug 2004 This question and answer article features WebSphere expert Wolfgang Kulhanek who answers questions on WebSphere Business Integration products that include WebSphere MQ Workflow, WebSphere Business Integration Server, and WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation.
Introduction
WebSphere® Business Integration Server and WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation are the cornerstones of IBM's process automation offerings. They model, implement, and automate business processes for both human and automatic activities. WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation supports the new BPEL4WS standard. For more information, see
developerWorks WebSphere Business Integration zone.
Question:
WBI Server and WBI Server Foundation seem to be two parallel streams. For instance,
a complete business process integration can be implemented using WorkFlow while I can
have the same achieved using SOA with WBISF. What really is going to be the direction
going forward?
Answer:
You are correct in observing that WBI Server and WBI Server Foundation are two parallel development streams. At this time, the IBM team can guide you as to which product fits your current needs - with best practices and possible future migration in mind.
I cannot discuss future unannounced product plans in this public forum, but rest assured that IBM is committed to customers using either product.
As for SOA, all of IBM's business process management products are SOA-enabledaf today. This is true for WebSphere MQWorkflow, WebSphere InterChange server, and of course, WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation.
Question:
I have heard that WBISF supports compensation. Could you elaborate on this functionality?
Answer:
Compensation is an extremely powerful feature of WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation. There are four main kinds of compensation:
- Technical Compensation:
This compensation occurs because of a technical (IT) problem that triggers a rollback of the transaction. Examples include deadlocks,
blue-screens, and so on. This applies only to tasks which have not participated in a transaction.
- Business Compensation:
This is compensation because of a fault that has been added to the process model. This does not trigger compensation, but the transaction will be committed. For example, the hotel is sold out.
- Microflow-Compensation:
The entire microflow (also called short-running flow) is executed under the control of one transaction. If this transaction is rolled back, all successfully executed activities have to be compensated. It is also possible to trigger a rollback by throwing a fault if
a) the fault is not caught, or b) the fault is caught in a fault handler that is defined for the top level process. While a microflow usually executes in one transaction, sometimes tasks cannot participate in the transaction. The transaction has to be rolled back. For example, sending e-mail.
- Macroflow-Compensation:
Every activity runs in its own transaction. Other than that, see microflow-compensation.
Question:
Which platforms does WBISF run on?
Answer:
WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation runs on all IBM supported hardware platforms. This includes:
- Windows® 32 bit
- Linux 32 bit and Linux on z/OS
- AIX®
- HP-UX®
- Sun® Solaris®
- i/OS (iSeries)
- z/OS (zSeries)
See WebSphere software platform for detailed information about platform and OS versions.
Question:
When is WBIMB moving to the J2EE platform? When is ICS moving to the J2EE platform?
I know both products can interact with WAS, but when are they going to start running
on top of WAS?
Answer:
I cannot discuss future unannounced product plans in this public forum, but let me say that WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker
(WBIMB) integrates with any
J2EE platform. There are features like Web Services support and Java™ processing nodes as well as native JMS support in WBIMB that allows
using WBIMB in any J2EE context out of the box.
Question:
We are currently running WebSphere with Fixpak 2, no integration with WebSphere MQ. However,
our client would like to start interfacing with MQ. We would like to know the integration
effort and where we would make the configuration changes so the two can integrate and interface.
Can you please provide some assistance?
Answer:
Please take a look at Chapter 11 in the following Redbook from
the WebSphere handbook series,
IBM WebSphere Application Server V5.1 System Management
and Configuration.
It has all the information about WebSphere's messaging support that you need.
Question:
Does WebSphere Application Server Professional Edition 5.0 support 64 bit DB2 UDB?
Answer:
The answer is yes. However, because WebSphere Application Server is a 32-bit application, you need to use a
32-bit DB2® client to access a 64-bit DB2 server.
The reference chart for the supported DB2 client and server combinations is listed in
IBM DB2 Universal Database:
Quick Beginnings for DB2 Clients. See "Configuration scenarios" in Chapter 4.
Refer to
Java application deployment
considerations: For 32/62 bit DB2 UDB servers. At the end of this article, it reads as follows:
Usability:
32-bit applications such as WebSphere Application Server link to 64-bit DB2 native libraries. When you attempt to link 32-bit objects
against the 64-bit DB2 application library, an operating system linker error message is returned. The solution is to use a 32-bit DB2
client with 32-bit applications such as WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, and so on, to access data on 64-bit DB2 instances.
Question:
I am using MQSeries to connect to the host. When I use a VB app, then I am able to
retrieve the information from the host whereas when I use an asp app, the queue manager
is sending an error 2035 meaning MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED?
(submitted by Vinod)
Answer:
This question is not in my domain, but I believe that your ASP application is being run by a special user ID by IIS and not your
currently logged on user. I suspect that your user ID for ASPs is not part of the mqm group.
Question:
My company is planning to use WBI for business integration. We want to build the collaboration
and expose it as a Web service. This Web service will be accessed by SOAP requests from the client.
Integrator will be dealing with IDMS mainframe systems on the back-end. We are still unclear about
the adaptors which we would need to use for our scenario. I wonder if you can let me know
about this.
Answer:
You can use WBI Adapters with both WebSphere InterChange Server as well as WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker.
You will be using at least the Web Services Adapter to expose your collaboration as a Web Service. You will also be using either the
WebSphere MQ, the JMS, or the WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker adapter to connect InterChange Server with the
Message Broker. Either adapter would work fine. I cannot really recommend any adapter for your mainframe system without knowing
your environment.
Question:
We have a situation in which several clients (other systems like legacy, etc) or connected
to a component we call the Message Handler. The Message Handler receives messages through
MQ and sends other messages through MQ. The Message Handler is pure Java and uses
Driven Beans for receiving and normal JMS for sending. It uses the Workflow Process
Choreographer for a small part. My questions:
- What can you say about the trade-off between making a separate queue for each connection
between one system and the Message Handler? To reduce overhead, the senders are thinking of
making a separate header (inside the body it seems) and putting many different stuff on the
same queue and we will have to write some kind of dispatcher.
Sometimes we know the sender is also written in Java so we decided to use soap/jms in
this situation.
- Sometimes the sender is sending multiple messages which belong to each other (text part
with binary part). We thought about a solution in which an MDB receives messages
(with message selector) and then does a blocking receive on the same queue for the
corresponding second message.
Answer:
- This sounds like a pub/sub implementation and would be far more elegant. Is there any reason why you can't use pub/sub? Also, I'm not sure
what is meant by separate connection between one system and the Message Handler. The connection is to the JMS Provider and is a
heavyweight object. This is because typically the creation of a connection involves setting up authentication/communication and so on.
You want to minimize connections where possible. JMS does not restrict connections and you need to consider what are the
operational reasons for using multiple connections. Additionally, you would typically not be managing the connections if you are running
in a J2EE environment as this is managed by the runtime.
Why not native JMS instead of SOAP/JMS? I'm not sure what value of SOAP adds here. In this case, you are only using JMS
as a reliable transport.
- Is there any reason why you cannot deliver the payload in one JMS Message? Also, even in the event of different message types, in
your MDB, you could use the
'Class.isInstanceOf; method to determine the type of message you have received.
So the pattern could be:
// get TextMessage and extract data
// get ObjectMessage and extract data
// send data to business logic layer
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Question:
How can you implement security in a WBI-SF process? The sort of activities I'm looking for are:
- Invocation of activities with SOAP bindings using either SOAP/HTTPS or WS-Security
- Invocation of activities with EJB/JMS/J2C bindings using Java 2 Security Roles
- Securing a process with a SOAP interface using either SOAP/HTTPS or WS-Security
- Securing a process with an EJB/JMS interface using Java 2 Security Roles
- Credential passing between process caller and activity implementations
- Credential mapping between process caller and activity implementations
The only material I can find is related to how security works for the Staff support,
with its LDAP integration. If we delegate this function to WBI Connect or the WSGW,
how do the two integrate?
Answer:
- Invocation of activities with SOAP bindings using either SOAP/HTTPS or WS-Security
We recommend using the Web Services Gateway. Using the Gateway, you can add WS-Security information to your
Web Services invocations.
- Invocation of activities with EJB/JMS/J2C bindings using Java 2 Security Roles
EJB, J2C: This invocation is done under the authority of the process starter. Otherwise, use run-as.
JMS: there is no concept of passing user credentials with JMS messages. Consider using MQ security.
- Securing a process with a SOAP interface using either SOAP/HTTPS or WS-Security
You can implement by using basic WebSphere security features, SSL, or both (agnostic to business processes).
- Securing a process with an EJB/JMS interface using Java 2 Security Roles
Same as in item 3.
- Credential passing between process caller and activity implementations
No way. If so, then only the credentials of the process starter are passed. Otherwise, use run-as.
- Credential mapping between process caller and activity implementations
I don't know how to interpret that. As in item 5, the credentials of the process starter
are passed (if applicable) to the called Web Service (EJB, JAVA, J2C binding).
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About the author  | 
| | Wolfgang Kulhanek is the Worldwide Technical Sales Leader for WebSphere Business Integration Server with IBM's Software Group and an IBM certified IT Specialist. He is the author of various
WebSphere MQ Workflow SupportPacs
and WebSphere Business Integration articles. |
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