Patterns: Implementing Self-Service in an SOA Environment

80 Patterns: Implementing Self-Service in an SOA Environment

service integration bus link, these links must be configured in both directions

in order for the two buses to be able to communicate. At runtime, messages

that are routed to a foreign bus will flow across the corresponding link.

5.2.3 ESB capabilities

WebSphere Application Server V6 provides several runtime features that support

ESB capabilities. It has support for Web services standards and for programming

models that enable data and message manipulation. Development tools for

WebSphere Application Server, such as Rational Application Developer, include

tools and wizards that simplify the development of application, framework, or

infrastructure code to leverage those runtime features.

WebSphere Application Server provides, through the service integration bus

component, communication infrastructure for messaging and Web services

applications that enables it to support the communication and message

processing requirements of an ESB. WebSphere Application Server and tools

also provide support for a wide variety of integration methods, either directly

(databases, J2EE connectors, and so forth) or through support for Enterprise

Application Integration middleware (such as WebSphere MQ).

WebSphere Application Server V6 meets the ESB capabilities that the following

sections describe.

Communication

WebSphere Application Server supports all of the minimum and extended

capabilites that we have defined for communication, including support for:

򐂰 SOAP-based Web service hosting and invocation

򐂰 Asynchronous messaging

The support is provided by the service integration bus component that

provides a JMS V1.1 compliant JMS provider for reliable message transport.

򐂰 Synchronous messaging with HTTP and HTTPS transports

򐂰 Point-to-point, request/response, fire and forget, events, and

publish/subscribe styles of messaging

򐂰 Routing support that allows:

– Dynamic service and port selection

– Web service requests converted from one WSDL definition to another

– Internet routing with proxy

򐂰 WSDL as the service interface definition and the service implementation

definition

WSDL can publish services to a UDDI directory.

Chapter 5. Product mappings and product overview 81

Integration

WebSphere Application Server supports all of the minimum and extended

capabilites that we have defined for integration, including support for:

򐂰 JDBC used for connectivity to external data sources, for example, a relational

database.

򐂰 Protocol transformation capability comes in the form of the service integration

bus supporting transformation from SOAP/HTTP to SOAP/JMS and vice

versa.

򐂰 Existing software and application adapters can be incorporated into the

system by implementing the J2EE Connector Architecture support for

connecting the J2EE platform to heterogeneous Enterprise Information

Systems (EIS). Examples include ERP, mainframe transaction processing,

database systems, and existing applications not written in the Java

programming language.

򐂰 Connectivity to enterprise application middleware

The service integration bus is tightly integrated with WebSphere MQ.

Connections can be defined so that WebSphere MQ queue managers view a

service integration bus as a queue manager, and so the service integration

bus views queue managers as another bus. The JMS support means

messages can be exchanged with any other JMS V1.1 compliant provider.

򐂰 Data enrichment of services messages within the ESB

The service integration bus provides mediation support that allows

processing of in-flight messages. Examples of the processing that can be

performed by a mediation are transforming a message from one format into

another, routing messages to one or more target destinations that were not

specified by the sending application, augmenting messages by adding data

from a data source, and distributing messages to multiple target destinations.

򐂰 WebSphere Application Server is a fully J2EE V1.4 compliant application

server.

򐂰 Language interfaces for service invocation

WebSphere Application Server supports Java interfaces. It provides Web

service support so that it can act as both a Web service provider and as a

consumer. As a provider, it hosts Web services that are published for use by

clients. As a consumer, it hosts applications that invoke Web services from

other locations

Security

WebSphere Application Server supports some of the extended capabilites that

we have defined for security, including support for: