 | Level: Introductory Wolfgang Kulhanek (kulhanek@us.ibm.com), Consulting Middleware Specialist IBM Worldwide WebSphere Technical Sales Support, IBM
Carol Serna (cserna@us.ibm.com), developerWorks WebSphere Content Editor, IBM
12 Sep 2005 WebSphere Process Server V6 is a next-generation business process server that supports all styles of integration based on SOA and open standards, and automates business processes that span people, workflows, applications, systems, platforms, and architectures. This article introduces the major WebSphere Process Server capabilities, features, and solutions, and provides references so you can learn more.
What is WebSphere Process Server?
Service Oriented Architecture provides you with the ability to develop and modify
integration applications dynamically. It also lets you integrate existing applications
with newer applications, so that they work together transparently.
IBM® WebSphere® Process Server V6 is a comprehensive Service Oriented Architecture
integration platform, which is based on WebSphere Application Server V6.
You can use WebSphere Process Server to develop and execute standards-based, component-based
business integration applications in a Service Oriented Architecture. Because it is based
on J2EE 1.4 infrastructure and platform services provided by WebSphere Application
Server V6, WebSphere Process Server includes capabilities such
as business process automation.
You can use WebSphere Integration Developer to develop applications that run on
WebSphere Process Server V6. WebSphere Integration Developer, based on the Eclipse 3.0 platform,
delivers role-based development for integration projects. You can use WebSphere Integration Developer
and WebSphere Business Modeler V6 together with IBM Rational Application Developer V6 or IBM Rational Software Architect
V6 as an integration development platform. J2EE developers, business analysts, or integration developers can
use the tooling perspective based on their unique roles, so that each developer can focus on the editors
and tools needed for these roles thereby maximizing productivity.
Why would you use Service Component Architecture and Business Objects with WebSphere Process Server?
What is Service Component Architecture (SCA)?
WebSphere Process Server supports two capabilities required for an
efficient Service Oriented Architecture: a universal invocation model, implemented as
a Service Component Architecture (SCA), and a universal data representation implemented,
as Business Objects (BOs).
Conceptually, SCA describes all integration artifacts as service components
with well defined interfaces. SCA also introduces the concept of a module, which groups
together service components and provides further specification and encapsulation of
services. Integration developers can use the Assembly Editor in WebSphere Integration Developer
to group service components into modules, and to specify which service interfaces you want
exposed by the module to outside consumers.
You can use Services that include imported components, such as Java Beans or
Web Services, along with service components that WebSphere Process Server provides.
You can then connect the modules together to form complete integration solutions.
SCA concepts let you encapsulate integration logic within
modules. This means that you can make a change to a service component within a module
without affecting any of the other modules in the overall solution as long as the interface of the
module you changed stays the same. This concept applies throughout WebSphere
Process Server. All integration artifacts in WebSphere Process Server -- processes,
business rules, human tasks, and so forth -- are represented as SCA service components.
This creates a very flexible environment that you can use, for example, to replace
an approval module that contains a human task with a module containing a business rule.
As long as the interface to the module is identical, you can deploy the updated module,
and it will be picked up automatically by all consuming modules without
changes.
You can use SCA to invoke service components through both synchronous and
asynchronous programming styles. This set of options lets you assemble the modules
into overall solutions so that asynchronous channels between service components and
modules can increase the overall throughput and flexibility of the system.
What are Business Objects (BO)?
You can use Business Objects, extensions of Service Data Objects (SDO), to provide an
abstraction layer for data access. While SDOs provide a universal means of describing
disparate data, such as JDBC ResultSet, XML Schema described data, and so forth,
Business Objects include some extensions that are very important for integration solutions; you can use them to
further describe the data that is being exchanged between SCA services. This includes
metadata-like change history or information on the context of the data, such as update, create,
delete, and so on.
While the concepts of Service Component Architecture and
Business Objects are new, the implementation is standards based. For example, interfaces
to any SCA service component are described through Web Service Definition Language
(WSDL) or Java interfaces and Business Objects are described through XML Schema
(XSD).
What are the new features?
WebSphere Application Server V6
As the foundation for WebSphere Process Server capabilities, WebSphere Application Server V6
is a native Java Messaging Service provider that includes
full interoperability with existing WebSphere MQ-based networks and support for Web
services. Java™ 2 Connector Architecture 1.5 renders key connection services
for WebSphere Process Server.
Figure 1. WebSphere Process Server platform
Service Oriented Architecture core
Service Component Architecture, Business Objects, and the Common Event Infrastructure (CEI)
are part of the SOA core. In addition, to allow for the invocation of native SCA service components,
various SCA bindings allow for interaction with external services such as Enterprise Java Beans,
Web services, JMS Messages or legacy applications through WebSphere Adapters.
You can use CEI to capture events you can use to monitor applications, for example,
in IBM WebSphere Business Monitor or IBM Tivoli
products. WebSphere Process Server builds on and leverages CEI to emit a specific set of
events for each SCA service component.
Supporting services
On top of the runtime infrastructure and the SOA core, WebSphere Process Server offers
a variety of service components. Supporting services are components that are needed in
any integration solution including data transformation and synchronization services.
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Interface maps:
It is possible for interfaces of existing components to match
semantically but not syntactically (for example, updateCustomer versus
updateCustomerInDB2). This is especially true for components that already exist
and services that need to be accessed. Interface maps let you invoke
these components by translating these calls. Additionally, you can use Business Objects
to translate the actual Business Object parameters of a service
invocation.
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Business Object maps:
You use a Business Object map to translate one type of
Business Object into another type of Business Object. You can use these maps in a
variety of ways, for example, in an interface map to convert one type of parameter
data into another.
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Relationships:
You may want to access the same data within business integration scenarios,
for example, customer records, or in various backend systems, such as
an ERP system and a CRM system. A common problem for keeping
Business Objects in sync is that different backend systems use different keys to
represent the same objects. You can use the relationship service in WebSphere Process Server
to establish relationship instances between objects in these disparate
backend systems. These relationships are typically accessed from a Business
Object map when translating one Business Object Format into another.
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Selector:
You can use a selector component for dynamic selection and invocation of
different services, which all share the same interface. For example a customer
support process could use different human tasks implementations during holidays
than during regular working days. WebSphere Process Server offers a Web-based
interface to enable dynamic updates to the selection criteria and target services,
which means that a module that has been deployed at a later time can still be
called by this selector component enabling dynamic changes to the integration
solution.
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Java:
You can use Java components to invoke Java code.
Service components
WebSphere Process Server provides four service components:
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Business processes:
The business process component in WebSphere
Process Server implements a Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL)
compliant process engine. You can develop and deploy business processes
that support long and short running business processes and
a compensation model within a scalable infrastructure. You can create
WS-BPEL models in WebSphere Integration Developer or import from a business
model that you can create in WebSphere Business Modeler.
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Human Tasks:
Human Tasks are standalone components in WebSphere
Process Server that you can use to assign work to employees or to invoke
any other service. Additionally, the Human Task Manager supports the ad hoc
creation and tracking of tasks. You can use existing LDAP directories (as well as operating
system repositories and the WebSphere user registry) to access
staff information. WebSphere Process Server also supports multi-level escalation
for human tasks including e-mail notification and priority aging. WebSphere
Process Server includes an extensible Web Client that you can use to work
with tasks or processes. This Web Client is based on a set of reusable Java
Server Faces (JSF) components that you can use to create custom clients or
embed human task functionality into other Web applications.
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Business State Machines:
Business State Machines provide another
way of modeling a business process. This lets you represent your company's
business processes based on states and events, which sometimes are easier
to model than a graph-oriented business process model. One example would be
an ordering process where you can modify or cancel the order at any time
during the order process until the order is actually fulfilled.
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Business Rules:
Business Rules are a means of implementing and
enforcing business policy through externalization of business function. This enables
dynamic changes of a business process for a more responsive businesses
environment. Business rule authoring is supported with Eclipse-based desktop
tooling. Business Analysts can use the Web-based runtime tooling included in WebSphere Process Server
to update business rules as business
needs dictate without affecting other services.
You can configure and administer all of WebSphere Process Server's features
using extensions to the WebSphere Application Server administration console
and configuration capabilities. This provides one place to administer the entire
application stack.
What can you do with WebSphere Process Server?
Transaction, security, clustering and workload management:
WebSphere Process Server solutions leverage WebSphere Application Server capabilities, thus providing you
with a scalable and reliable business integration environment you can use
for transaction, security, clustering and workload management.
Full ACID transaction support:
WebSphere Process Server offers full
ACID transaction support for business processes, both for short-running (one
transaction end to end) and long-running processes (multiple transactions).
You can modify transaction boundaries in the tooling to group multiple steps
in a business process into one transaction. Additionally, it supports flexible
compensation of business processes as defined in the WS-BPEL specification.
Recovery Manager as well as a Recovery Console:
WebSphere Process
Server includes a Recovery Manager as well as a Recovery Console. In case of
a failure in the middle of executing a business integration application, the
server will detect this failure and allow, you, the administrator to manage the failed
applications from the Recovery Console.
Encapsulation of Business Functions: The unique architecture in WebSphere Process
Server allows the encapsulation
of business functions into separate modules that you can then update
independently of each other. For example, you can use an approval module that contains a
human task for the actual approval and later later replace it with another approval
module containing a business rule. This change
is completely transparent to the consumer of this module. Additionally, the concept of encaptulation
ensures that data and interface definitions are encapsulated where they are
used. For example, you can hide the details of how a customer is represented in a backend
system inside of a module, while the module itself exposes a generic
interface with a generic business object as data. This canonical data representation
also enables a high degree of reuse in any given integration application.
How does it work with existing systems and new applications?
WebSphere Process Server offers many options you can use to integrate your company's existing systems
with new integration applications.
WebSphere Application Server messaging resources: WebSphere
Process Server uses the messaging
resources in the WebSphere Application Server to tie into an existing
WebSphere MQ network. You can configure the native Java JMS provider that comes with WebSphere Application
Server V6 to connect
into an existing WebSphere MQ Queue Manager, so you can create an extension
to the WebSphere MQ network.
Native Web services Interoperability: WebSphere Process Server contains
full support for Web services including support for SOAP over HTTP or SOAP over
JMS. WebSphere Process Server also includes support for import and export for
WebSphere Process Server components, JMS, and Enterprise Java Session
Beans.
WebSphere Adapters:
WebSphere Adapters include both application-specific adapters, for example, for Siebel,
SAP, or PeopleSoft as well as technology adapters, for example, for relational
databases or flat files.
Resources
- Read the WebSphere Process Server announcement.
- Visit the WebSphere Process Server product site to get started with WebSphere Process Server.
- Visit the WebSphere Integration Developer product site to learn more about WebSphere Integration Developer.
- The article IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal: Introducting the WebSphere Integration Reference Architecture (developerWorks WebSphere, August 2005) provides an overview of the WebSphere Information Integration architecture.
- Get the latest version of Business Process Execution Language for Web Services version 1.1 specification.
- Learn more about WebSphere Business Integration, visit the IBM Business Integration product site. You'll find
technical documentation, how-to articles, education, downloads, product
information, and more.
- Learn more about WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation, visit the IBM Business Integration Server Foundation product site. You'll find
technical documentation, how-to articles, education, downloads, product
information, and more.
- Find resources for WebSphere Business Integration developers on the WebSphere Business Integration zone.
- Get support for products on the IBM Software Support Lifecycle site.
- Get the latest version of Service Data Object (SDO) specification.
- Access Web services knowledge, tools, and skills with Speed-start Web services,
which offers the latest Java-based software development tools and middleware
from IBM (trial editions), plus online tutorials and articles, and an online
technical forum.
- Get involved in the developerWorks community by participating in
developerWorks blogs.
- Take advantage of
WebSphere training and certification resources.
About the authors | 
| | 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 has been working with IBM's process integration products for more than 10 years in both development and sales roles and is the author of various WebSphere MQ Workflow SupportPacs. |
| | | Carol Serna is the editor of the WebSphere Business Integration zone. When Carol isn't working on the Business Integration zone, she is mom to Rusty, a lovable Yorkshire terrier and Lolita, a very talkative, miniature Hahn's Macaw.
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