I present the following exhibit: The only difference between these two snippets is the string that I am setting in the commonName attribute. But, let’s look at the java that was generated under the covers for the bottom snippet: boolean __result__31 = (iFlag != null) && (iFlag.trim().equals(“Y”)); if (__result__31){ commonj.sdo.DataObject svcCharVal = __result__34; java.lang.String __result__36 […]
Problem Determination and WebSphere Integration Developer
In the past, I’ve gone and de-constructed WebSphere Process Server stack traces in an example of problem determination. Now, I’ll talk about what I do when WebSphere Integration Developer goes crazy. A typical WebSphere Integration Developer exception consists of either a builder error pop up dialog or an issue when trying to open an editor. […]
Part 3: IBM and the self-sufficient WebSphere Community – Developer Chats
Previously, I talked about what steps I think IBM could take in order to foster an external WebSphere Community with the goal that one day it would become self-sufficient. In the previous posts in the series: I talked about the benefits to IBM I talked about the holding an external conference call for practitioners I […]
WSDL Anti-Pattern: xsd:Any and xsd:AnyType To Encapsulate Future Changes
The cousin to yesterday’s WSDL Anti-Pattern: The ‘Single XML String’ Service is the use of the XSD specification’s ‘any’. ‘Any’ literally means “any well-formed XML contained in this section is valid”. ‘anyType’ means “any valid XSD Type”. We can start to see the correlation between the Single XML String service and the use of these […]
WSDL Anti-Pattern: The ‘Single XML String’ Service
WSDL is a very useful technology. It allows service providers and consumers to agree on namespaces, operation names, the data to be transmitted in a request and the data to expect in a response. All very good things to know, all in a platform neutral way. Now, WSDL tells us what all the elements and […]
Avoid the WebSphere Integration Developer Debugger
Yesterday, I had a non-descriptive NullPointerException occur within a visual snippet sub-map in WebSphere Integration Developer. The only message written to the log was something that identified which transformation in the sub-map failed. There was nothing about what line was bad. Rather than filling my code full of “Got Here” and “Did this Runs”, I […]
Tip: Agree To Concrete WSDL Definitions before Development Begins
If you are a provider or a consumer about to enter development on a web service, you should have an understanding with your counterpart of the WSDL that defines the service. It should be very well ‘baked’ and changes once development begins should be minimial. Major things like name spaces and object names should rarely […]
Part 2: IBM and the self-sufficient WebSphere Community – An External Conference Call
Previously, I talked about what steps I think IBM could take in order to foster an external WebSphere Community with the goal that one day it would become self-sufficient. In that first post, I outlined what I thought were the benefits for IBM to make it happen. In these next series of posts, I’m going […]
Impact 2008: Web 2.0 Social Networking Missing In Action
Over a twitter yesterday, James Governor lamented about the lack of official web 2.0 happenings a conference where we’re all talking about mash-ups, integrating communities and mass enablement. IBM’s youTube Channel has a single 1 minute video from day one, theres a twitter account created of the name “Impact2008“* which has no activity. Heck, even […]
Impact 2008: Happy Birthday WebSphere
The marketing says that it’s WebSphere’s 10th birthday on Tuesday. To celebrate, IBM is asking for revised lyrics to the well-known Birthday song. Never being one to pass up on a free chance at bizarre creativity, I’ve shilled-out and submitted: WebSphere *IS* big blue What Can it not Do? We praise you, Dear WebSphere Ten […]
Venting some WebSphere Integration Developer Steam
In the blog Albees Online, Albin Joseph expresses his frustration that he’s stuck using the buggiest IDE in the World (WebSphere Integration Developer). I’m going to include my thoughts below: Most of the times the server wouldn’t change the status to started even if the server is actually started Agreed. There’s something wrong with the […]
Part 1: IBM and the self-sufficient WebSphere Community – IBMs Business Case
Previously, I lamented about the lack of a non-IBM community dedicated to WebSphere. In this series, I’m going to put myself in IBM shoes and describe what I would do to encourage the formation of an external community. Before I get into that, I’d like to reflect on the benefits it would bring to IBM […]
Does Commerical Enterprise Software Suck?
In Johannes Brodwall’s Blog, he asks “Why does so much enterprise commercial software suck?”. In it, he mentions that his project migrated off of WebSphere and onto Jetty and regrets that his project didn’t migrate soon. The money quote: But WebSphere is just the most blatant example of software that gives you nothing, gets in […]
BPEL or ESB: Which should you use?
When designing an SOA solution, it’s not always clear whether you should use
a Web services BPEL process or an ESB mediation flow. This article describes
considerations that will help you decide which is right for you.
Exploring The Contents of a WID Module Project
You are a developer in WID, you play around in your candy UI all day creating integrations. One day, you switch into the Resource Perspective and you are exposed to files and extensions that you’ve never seen before. What are they? How does it all hang together? Read on! In the root of your module […]
WebSphere DataPower vs WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus
Yesterday, I blathered on about how great DataPower would be for usage in WebSphere Process Server. Your developer would be able to stay completely inside the Generic Business Object (GBO) data view while leveraging DataPower’s awesome ability to transform efficiently. Very neat indeed. An interesting is scenario where DataPower IS the ESB. No WebSphere Process […]
Event Sequencing Message Locking – Resolution!
In a previous post, I discussed the DeveloperWorks Process Server Endurance article. In that article, they ran into a situation where the number of maxMessages was breached (100 by default). At my client site, we had a situation where messages in an Event Sequenced queue would remain locked forever, causing the maxMessages to be breached. […]
The WebSphere Exception Trace: Deconstructed
If you’ve worked developing an application for more than five minutes, chances are that you’ve encounter a big long exception trace. The best thing to do is try to look at the very top for a non-generic exception that relates to your problem. This article will attempt to describe exactly what happened via the information […]
Whats new in WID/WPS v6.1
I stumbled across a great article on developerWorks that outlines what’s new in WPS v6.1 and a second article on whats new in WID v6.1. It’s nice to see IBM come out with a detailed article of whats changed between versions aside from the usual useless marketing banter. WebSphere ESB improvements New mediation primitives let […]
WebSphere Process Server Endurance
Developerworks has a fantastic article written about Endurance Testing with WebSphere Process Server. Taken from the abstract: Endurance testing is an important aspect of reliability. This article provides insight into the various problems and solutions encountered by the WebSphere Process Server Validation team as they performed an endurance run on WebSphere Process Server V6.0.2. Upon […]
BOFactory: create(..) or createByElement(..) ?
The com.ibm.websphere.bo.BOFactory interface defines two methods: DataObject create(namespace, name) DataObject createByElement(namespace, name) Both methods take the same two parameters and both return DataObjects. Most of the time, create() is used and returns the DataObject as expected. Sometimes, though, you’ll find that it returns null when the namespace,name pair is correct. The reason for this peculiarity […]
Goals
I’m a large supporter of the IBM DeveloperWorks Forums for WebSphere Integration Developer and WebSphere Process Server (including WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus). Having the wealth of experience on this platform that I have, I tend to respond to 75%-80% of the questions. Sometimes, a question appears that sparks my brain with a rant or deserves […]