Category: Business Integration Tips

Business Object Maps and ‘Required’ Attributes

Just ran into an interesting scenario. We have a business object with a required attribute (amongst a sea of non-required ones). In a business object map, we only set the non-required ones and never set the required ones to any value. In the above example, ‘productStatus’ is required, ‘name’ is not. This is the Mediation […]

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WebSphere Integration Developer: Visual Snippet Java Code Generation Is Non-Deterministic

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 […]

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Visual Snippet Editor: Forgets Java Syntax

I have the following visual snippet which does not work. Can you spot the error? ‘RemoveLeadingZeros’ is a java snippet that returns a String. I then need to see if the string is a length greater than one. My snippet is marked with the error: “length() is not a method of string”. It’s difficult to […]

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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. […]

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WebSphere Integration Developer – Namespaces Cannot Span Projects

Say I have a Business Object named BO1, in the namespace “http://www.danzrobok.com/bo” and I have a second business object named BO2, in the namespace “http://www.danzrobok.com/bo”. With WebSphere Integration Developer, I MUST put both of these business objects in the same library or module project. If I split them into two library projects, then I will […]

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WebSphere Process Server and RPC/Literal Web Services: Beware Messages defined by ‘type’ instead of ‘element’.

After a ridiculous amount of XML tweaking and bleeding, I realize that RPC/Literal truly is completely broken in WebSphere Process Server v6.0.2.3. On the response message that consists of a Business Object we would constantly get the exception: Caused by: org.eclipse.emf.ecore.resource.Resource$IOWrappedException: Feature ‘MyResultBO’ not found. (sca:/message.xml, -1, -1) The XML from the service looks correct: […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Close WebSphere Integration Developer when updating Fixpacks for WebSphere Process Server

I was attempting to install WebSphere Process Server v6.0.2.3 on the server installed with WebSphere Integration Developer. The install kept failing on me with an exception: Caused by: com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.fileactions.NIFFileActionIOException: The file java/jre/lib/charsets.jar could not be replaced. at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.fileactions.ReplaceFileActionPlugin.execute (ReplaceFileActionPlugin.java:108) at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.fileactions.FileActionPlugin.executeFileAction (FileActionPlugin.java:54) at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.updi.component.was.ComponentFileActions.execute (ComponentFileActions.java:95) at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.updi.component.was.ComponentDeployAction.execute (ComponentDeployAction.java:48) at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.updi.component.was.UpdateComponent.execute (UpdateComponent.java:93) at com.ibm.ws.install.ni.framework.component.ComponentAction.executeComponentActions (ComponentAction.java:215) at […]

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Adding JMS or MQ/JMS Custom Header Attributes

If you need to add a custom header to your JMS (default messaging) or MQ/JMS message in WebSphere , you have two options. You can specify it as a custom header on the import component in the assembly diagram, or you can use a Medation Module. You can add the custom header property in the […]

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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 […]

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The VETO SOA Pattern

I’ve never been much of a patterns guy. I kind of always have the ability to apply common sense to a system and turn up something that is straight forward and makes sense. Periodically I get asked about what set of patterns I used to decide how a system should behave. To answer this question […]

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SCA, BPEL, Websphere Adapter for JDBC and Transactionality

Consider the following module: We have a Web Service Export connecting to a BPEL process which invokes the WebSphere Adapter for JDBC. The BPEL process has two invocations to insert two rows into the database. I have a business requirement that either both rows get inserted or no rows. Now in the success case, when […]

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Developing integration solutions with WebSphere Process Server relationships

The Relationship Service in IBM WebSphere Process Server is an infrastructure service that is well integrated with other transformation components. It includes a comprehensive administrative interface that you can use to easily implement complex integration scenarios without custom development of cross-referencing logic mixed in with your business logic. This article introduces the capabilities of the WebSphere Process Server Relationship Service, including those new in V6.1, and explains when and how to use these capabilities. (IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal)

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Introducting the SCA HTTP Binding

From DeveloperWorks, Configuring SCA HTTP binding to enable real-life scenarios You can use HTTP bindings supported by IBM® WebSphere® Integration Developer Version 6.1 in many common real-life integration scenarios involving Service Component Architecture (SCA) applications. For example, by properly configuring the HTTP bindings you can expose SCA applications as a simple HTTP URL using HTTP […]

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Automatic Build Solution for WebSphere Integration Developer

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 […]

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Oracle SOA Suite 11g – Hello Competition!

As I’m sure you can tell, I’m very WebSphere focused. I have a hard enough time keeping up with the zillion WebSphere branded products that get released throughout the year. On my random surfing of the internet (tyvm Technorati) , I turned up Oracle’s entry into the world of SOA: Oracle SOA Suite 11g. The […]

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Make ‘iWay’ for more WebSphere Adapters!

The WebSphere Journal reports that 35 ‘iWay’ adapters will be a part of WebSphere Integration Developer and WebSphere Process Server. The adapters can be used with: * Amdocs * Ariba * Baan * Broadvision * Clarify * Documentum * i2 * Lawson * Manugistics * MFG/PRO * Microsoft * Retek * TIBCO … The custom […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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