From Developerworks, Develop an automated build engine for Service Component Architecture applications using WebSphere Integration Developer

This article describes how to construct an automated build engine solution for applications developed using IBM WebSphere Integration Developer and maintained using Rational ClearCase as the Software Configuration Management system (SCM). It explains the overall approach used to construct the automated build engine, describes the inhibiting limitation in the current product set, provides a workaround in the form of a plug-in for WebSphere Integration Developer and provides a set of sample build scripts that show how to automate your builds.

One of the more overlooked parts of developing with WebSphere Integration Developer is how to go about automating a build process. Like all good build processes, the less manual steps required, the better. What I’m seeing in the field though, is a mad rush to skill up developers on WebSphere Integration Developer and and a mad rush to skill up administrators on WebSphere Process Server. There never seems to be a mad rush to automate the communication channels between these two teams. This lack of interaction usually leads to needless delays, finger pointing and a lack of accountability as to what is actually contained in the EAR given by the developer. For a year, I was the build guy at IBM for WebSphere Application Developer Integration Edition, so I know all the problems a build process can encounter. I’ll have more on this topic at a later time.

Anyway, this article explains how an automated build solution can be created that will pull the projects out of a Source Code Manager (Rational Clearcase), create a project interchange, invoke ‘serviceDeploy’ and generate an .EAR. The real value of the article comes from the code provided to allow Project Interchange creation.