Patterns: Flexible Self-Service Applications Using Process Choreography

Patterns: Flexible Self-Service Applications Using Process Choreography

by Carla Sadtler, Sreenivas Angara, Saravana Chandran, Peter Utzinger
Released August 2004
Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
ISBN: None

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Book description

In a rapidly changing business environment, keeping up with market and customer demand is crucial to survival. The infrastructure and applications that are at the heart of the business must be readily adaptable to meet those changing demands. With that in mind, this IBM Redbooks publication focuses on two Self Service application patterns, Self Service::Decomposition and Self Service::Agent, and looks at how these patterns can introduce business agility into an enterprise.

The Decomposition application pattern is instantiated with the process choreographer feature of WebSphere® Business Integration Server Foundation and features BPEL4WS technology.

Using process choreography allows us to define business processes as a set of activities executed in a particular sequence to achieve a business goal. Using process choreography ensures that business applications consist of flexible and adaptable elements allowing the application to change rapidly to meet business demands. As business processes change, new elements of the process can be inserted, and old elements rearranged or deleted. The implementation of each element in the process is still managed by the owning business units.

Integrating the use of business rule beans into the process or back-end applications allows rapid change to meet business requirements. Business rule beans externalize business elements that can be changed dynamically. These rules are defined and changed by business people, not programmers.

Moving into the Agent pattern, we enhance the capability of the business process and back-end applications to access business data. With the addition of an operational data store (ODS) we greatly improve the ability of applications to retrieve relevant business data quickly. Data from disparate legacy systems is transformed into a common format and gathered in the ODS for use by the business processes. The ODS contains only a subset of the legacy data, providing a streamlined, consistent, and current view of the business. The ODS can be read-only, or can allow data to be modified, in which case it is synchronized in near real-time with the legacy data. Integrating data at the ODS level versus changing back-end legacy systems provides additional business flexibility that is especially apparent during mergers and acquisitions.

Please note that the additional material referenced in the text is not available from IBM.

Table of contents

  1. Notices
    1. Trademarks
  2. Preface
    1. The team that wrote this redbook
    2. Become a published author
    3. Comments welcome
  3. Part 1: Patterns for e-business
    1. Chapter 1: Patterns for e-business
      1. The Patterns for e-business layered asset model
      2. How to use the Patterns for e-business (1/2)
      3. How to use the Patterns for e-business (2/2)
        1. Select a Business, Integration, or Composite pattern, or a Custom design
        2. Select an Application pattern
        3. Review Runtime patterns
        4. Review Product mappings
        5. Review guidelines and related links
      4. Summary
    2. Chapter 2: Self-Service business pattern
      1. Self-service applications
      2. Self-Service application patterns
      3. Application patterns used in this book
      4. Decomposition application pattern
        1. Business and IT drivers
        2. Solution
        3. Considerations
        4. Guidelines for use
        5. Benefits
        6. Limitations
        7. Putting the Application pattern to use
      5. Agent application pattern
        1. Business and IT drivers
        2. Solution
        3. Guidelines for use
        4. Benefits
        5. Limitations
        6. Putting the Application pattern to use
      6. Agent: Federation variation
    3. Chapter 3: Runtime patterns and product mappings
      1. An introduction to the node types
        1. Web application server node
        2. User node
        3. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) front-end
        4. Domain Name System (DNS) node
        5. Protocol firewall node
        6. Domain firewall node
        7. Directory and security services node
        8. Existing applications and data node
        9. Web server redirector node
        10. Application server node
        11. Integration server node
        12. Process manager node
        13. Data Server / Services node
      2. Runtime patterns (1/2)
      3. Runtime patterns (2/2)
        1. Decomposition runtime patterns
        2. Agent runtime pattern
      4. Product mappings
        1. Decomposition product mapping
        2. Agent product mapping
      5. Runtime product overview (1/3)
      6. Runtime product overview (2/3)
      7. Runtime product overview (3/3)
        1. WebSphere Application Server
        2. IBM HTTP Server and Web server plug-in
        3. IBM Directory Server V5.2
        4. WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation
        5. IBM DB2 Universal Database product family
        6. DB2 Information Integrator portfolio
  4. Part 2: Guidelines
    1. Chapter 4: Technology options
      1. Web services
        1. Static and dynamic Web services
        2. JAX-RPC
        3. Web services and the service-oriented architecture
        4. Web services security
        5. For more information on Web services
      2. Flow languages
        1. Flow Definition Language
        2. Flow Definition Markup Language
        3. Business Process Execution Language for Web Services
      3. Java Connector Architecture (JCA)
      4. Java Message Service
        1. What messaging is
        2. JMS and IBM WebSphere MQ
        3. Advantages of JMS
        4. Disadvantages of JMS
      5. Business Rule Bean framework
      6. Information integration
        1. Data consolidation
        2. Distributed access
        3. For more information
    2. Chapter 5: Designing business processes
      1. What is a “business process”?
      2. Modeling business processes
      3. Process choreographer programming model
      4. Developing business processes (1/3)
      5. Developing business processes (2/3)
      6. Developing business processes (3/3)
        1. Elements of a business process
        2. Business process clients
        3. Enterprise services
        4. Deployment of business processes
      7. Design guidelines for business processes (1/4)
      8. Design guidelines for business processes (2/4)
      9. Design guidelines for business processes (3/4)
      10. Design guidelines for business processes (4/4)
        1. Non-interruptible versus interruptible processes
        2. Synchronous versus asynchronous processes
        3. Human interaction
        4. Flow versus sequence structures
        5. Process security
        6. Parallel processing
        7. Audit trails
        8. Business process monitoring
        9. Performance and process analysis
        10. Exception situations
        11. Business rules
      11. Using an Operational Data Store (ODS)
        1. Why use an ODS?
        2. ODS design issues
        3. Accessing an ODS from a business process
      12. For more information
  5. Part 3: Scenarios
    1. Chapter 6: Building business processes with WebSphere Studio
      1. WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition (1/2)
      2. WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition (2/2)
        1. Business integration tools
      3. Building business processes (1/2)
      4. Building business processes (2/2)
        1. Create a service project
        2. Create a business process
        3. Update the process WSDL
        4. Add activities
        5. Add variables
        6. Add partner links
      5. Deploying and testing business processes (1/2)
      6. Deploying and testing business processes (2/2)
        1. Generate the deploy code
        2. Create the test server environment
        3. Test the process with the Web Client
      7. For more information
    2. Chapter 7: Business scenario overview
      1. Customer overview
        1. Business profile
        2. Business goals
        3. Existing environment
        4. Non-functional requirements
      2. Scenario overview (1/2)
      3. Scenario overview (2/2)
        1. Spot Loan scenario: online funds transfer with spot loan
        2. Staff Assisted Loan scenario: pre-approval for loans
        3. Extended Spot Loan scenario: extended loan approval data
    3. Chapter 8: Decomposition application pattern
      1. Business scenario
      2. Business process model
      3. Design guidelines
      4. Development guidelines (1/5)
      5. Development guidelines (2/5)
      6. Development guidelines (3/5)
      7. Development guidelines (4/5)
      8. Development guidelines (5/5)
        1. Process overview
        2. Preparing the workspace
        3. Process interface definition
        4. Banking partner interface
        5. Business process activities and links
        6. Triggering the business rule
      9. Deploying and testing the business process
    4. Chapter 9: Decomposition application pattern with human interaction
      1. Business scenario
      2. Business process model
      3. Design guidelines
      4. Development guidelines (1/4)
      5. Development guidelines (2/4)
      6. Development guidelines (3/4)
      7. Development guidelines (4/4)
        1. Process overview
        2. Preparing the workspace
        3. Process interface definition
        4. Banking partner interface
        5. Business process activities and links
      8. Deploying and testing the business process
    5. Chapter 10: Agent application pattern
      1. Business scenario
      2. Business process model
      3. Design guidelines
        1. ODS implementation
        2. ODS access
      4. Development guidelines
        1. Process overview
        2. Process development
      5. Deploying and testing the business process
  6. Part 4: Appendixes
    1. Appendix A: Setting up and installing the scenarios
      1. Setting up the environment
      2. Install WebSphere Studio
      3. Using the sample applications
      4. Installing and using the Spot Loan scenario
      5. Installing and using the Staff Assisted Loan scenario (1/3)
      6. Installing and using the Staff Assisted Loan scenario (2/3)
      7. Installing and using the Staff Assisted Loan scenario (3/3)
      8. Installing and using the Extended Spot Loan scenario (1/2)
      9. Installing and using the Extended Spot Loan scenario (2/2)
      10. Building a service interface for an EJB
    2. Appendix B: Business rule beans
      1. Preparing to use Business Rule Beans
      2. Update the server properties
      3. Create the BRBean database
      4. Running the Rule Management Application
      5. Define business rules
      6. Spot Loan scenario
      7. qualifyForSpotLoan() method
      8. BankRules/LevelRule
      9. LevelAssessor.java
      10. Staff Assisted Loan scenario
      11. needManagerApproval() method
      12. BankRules/RiskRule
      13. RiskAssessor.java
      14. Extended Spot Loan scenario
      15. LevelAssessor.java
    3. Appendix C: Additional material
      1. Locating the Web material
      2. Using the Web material
      3. How to use the Web material
  7. Related publications
    1. IBM Redbooks
    2. Other publications
    3. Online resources
    4. How to get IBM Redbooks
    5. Help from IBM
  8. Index (1/2)
  9. Index (2/2)
  10. Back cover

Product information

  • Title: Patterns: Flexible Self-Service Applications Using Process Choreography
  • Author(s): Carla Sadtler, Sreenivas Angara, Saravana Chandran, Peter Utzinger
  • Release date: August 2004
  • Publisher(s): IBM Redbooks
  • ISBN: None