MetaSolv Integration with other systems via Weblogic Integration(WLI)

Weblogic Integration(WLI) Introduction:

WLI was a product from BEA Systems and was recommended by MetaSolv for integration with other systems. Later Oracle has acquired BEA Systems and MetaSolv both.
It provides a development and run-time framework that unifies all the components of business integration.

Role in E2E system:

Weblogic Integration (WLI) plays following roles in an end to end system.

1. Interface b/w WBI/DataPower and M6

Receives WBI/DataPower request, process the request, send to M6.
Get response from M6, process the response, send to WBI/DataPower.

2. Major role in M6 front-end and custom applications

Order(ASR,LSR,PSR),Customer,Inventory creation/Update in M6.

3. Interaction with WBI/DataPower

Sends the order response/order status updates from M6 to WBI/DataPower.

MetaSolv Integration using Websphere MQs

In case DataPower or the other ESB is used to integrate with MetaSolv via WLI, MQ clustering is done on websphere MQ the flow will be as below.

Webspere MQ:

MQ facilitates the assured, secure and reliable exchange of information between applications, systems, services and file by sending and receiving message data via messaging queues, thereby simplifying the creation and maintenance of business applications.

MQ Clustering:

Typically a cluster contains queue managers that are logically related in some way and need to share some data or application

Once a cluster has been set up, the queue managers within it can communicate with each other without the need for any channel definitions or remote-queue definitions.

You need not make any alterations to your applications if you are going to set up a simple MQSeries cluster. The application names the target queue on the MQOPEN call as usual and need not be concerned about the location of the queue manager.

MetaSolv Integration using Weblogic JMS Queues

In the cases where DataPower or other ESB is used to integrate with MetaSolv via WLI using JMS Queue, the flow will be as below.

JMS Queues:

A JMS queue represents the point-to-point (PTP) messaging model, which enables one application to send a message to another.
 PTP messaging applications send and receive messages using named queues.
A queue sender (producer) sends a message to a specific queue. A queue receiver (consumer) receives messages from a specific queue.

Event Generators

Event generators publish messages to Message Broker channels in response to system events (for example, files arriving in a directory, or messages arriving in an email account or JMS queue or webshpere MQ).

Types:
JMS event generator
File event generator
Email event generator
RDBMS event generator
MQ series event generator


JMS Event Generator:

MQ Series Event Generator:

Message Broker Channels:

Messages are published to the channels and subscribed from the channels.
Channels are defined in the “channel file”.
You can specify the channels to which a process publishes and subscribes. Publishers can broadcast messages on the channels and consumers such as processes and other back end resources can
subscribe to them. In this way, the message broker facilitates a loosely coupled interface. You can add new publishers and new subscribers at run time.
Message brokers support event generators that can publish events from external sources to the message broker channels.

WLI workflows:

Graphical representation of the business process that meets the business requirements for your project.
Graph of component nodes in the business process and its interactions with clients and resources, such as databases, JMS queues, file systems, and other components.

WLI Controls:

Controls make it easy to access enterprise resources, such as databases, file systems, Enterprise Java Beans, and so on, from within your application.
The control handles the work of connecting to the enterprise resource for you, so that you can focus on your business process’ business logic.
Examples:
Database Control
Email Control
File Control
Custom Java Control

WLI integration with M6:

Metasolv APIs are exposed to WLI only.

APIs’ jar files are deployed on WLS and the respective APIs are used in WLI workflows, based on the business objective.

Some of the Metasolv APIs commonly used:
Metasolv Order Management API
Metasolv Customer Management API
Metasolv Inventory  Management API

Weblogic Server:

Below are the two weblogic consoles, also listed the regular tasks performed using them.

Weblogic server console:

1. Monitor the server performance
2. Configuration of JMS queues
3. Configuration of JDBC datastores, connection pools, etc..
4. Deploying the application

Weblogic Integration Admin console:

1. Allows you to manage and monitor the entities and resources required for your WebLogic Integration applications
2. Configuration of MB channels, Event Generators,etc..

Hope above helps in understanding the MetaSolv integration with other systems via WLI. Please leave your feedback or query.