7-1 understanding web methods product suite

Title Page

Understandingthe webMethods Product Suite

Version 7.1

January 2008

webMethods

Copyright& Docu‐ment ID
This document applies to webMethods Product Suite Version 7.1 and to all subsequent releases.

Specifications contained herein are subject to change and these changes will be reported in subsequent release notes or new editions.

© Copyright Software AG 2008.

All rights reserved.

The name Software AG and/or all Software AG product names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Software AG. Other company and product names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Document ID: WEBM-UN-71-20080128

Table of Contents

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Document Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Additional Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1. The webMethods Product Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Integration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Developer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Integration Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13webMethods Broker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Adapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Business-to-Business Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Trading Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16eStandards Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Composite Applications Framework (CAF) Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19My webMethods Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Business Process Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Integration Server and webMethods Broker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25My webMethods Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Collaborative Composite Application and Business Process Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Metadata Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Service-Oriented Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27CentraSite GE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Business Activity Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Optimize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

System Administration Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36webMethods Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Database Scripts and the Database Component Configurator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Deployer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2. Administering the webMethods Product Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Installing webMethods Products and Setting Up Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Installing or Uninstalling Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Creating or Dropping Database Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Understanding the webMethods Product Suite Version 7.1 3

Table of Contents

Connecting Products and Database Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Upgrading Products and Migrating Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Configuring Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Monitoring System Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Setting Up Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Analyzing Monitoring Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Monitoring and Managing Services and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Deploying Assets from One Environment to Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Scaling the webMethods Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Archiving or Deleting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3. Developing Integration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Developing an Integration Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Implementation Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

4. Designing Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Designer Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54High-Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

4 Understanding the webMethods Product Suite Version 7.1

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Detailed Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Developing the Business Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55Developing Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

5. Business Administration and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Administering Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Monitoring Business Process Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Analyzing and Improving Process Instance Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Trading Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Administering Trading Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Monitoring Transactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

6. Setting up Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Setting Up Security within the webMethods Product Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Firewall Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67


Table of Contents


About This Guide

This guide describes webMethods Product Suite 7.1 and explains how to use the products together to accomplish a variety of goals. webMethods Product Suite 7.1 includes these products:

Document Conventions

webMethods adapters webMethods Metadata Library

webMethods Broker webMethods Monitor

webMethods CentraSite GE My webMethods Server

webMethods Designer webMethods Optimize

webMethods Developer webMethods Trading Networks

webMethods eStandards Modules Fair Isaacs Blaze Advisor

webMethods Integration Server

Convention Description

Bold Identifies elements on a screen.

Italic Identifies variable information that you must supply or change based on your specific situation or environment. Identifies terms the first time they are defined in text. Also identifies service input and output variables.

Narrow font Identifies storage locations for services on the webMethods Integration Server using the convention folder.subfolder:service.

Typewriter font

Identifies characters and values that you must type exactly or messages that the system displays on the console.

UPPERCASE Identifies keyboard keys. Keys that you must press simultaneously are joined with the “+” symbol.

\ Directory paths use the “\” directory delimiter unless the subject is UNIX‐specific.

[ ] Optional keywords or values are enclosed in [ ]. Do not type the [ ] symbols in your own code.


About This Guide

Additional InformationThe webMethods Advantage Web site at http://advantage.webmethods.com provides you with important sources of information about webMethods products:

Troubleshooting Information. The webMethods Knowledge Base provides troubleshooting information for many webMethods products.

Documentation Feedback. To provide feedback on webMethods documentation, go to the Documentation Feedback Form on the webMethods Bookshelf.

Additional Documentation. You can download webMethods documentation during product installation to a single directory called “_documentation,” located by default under the webMethods installation directory. In addition, you can find documentation for all webMethods products on the webMethods Bookshelf.


http://advantage.webmethods.com/kb_top

http://advantage.webmethods.com

http://advantage.webmethods.com/Bookshelf

http://advantage.webmethods.com/docfeedback

http://advantage.webmethods.com/Bookshelf

1 The webMethods Product Suite

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Integration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Business-to-Business Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Composite Applications Framework (CAF) Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Business Process Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Collaborative Composite Application and Business Process Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Service-Oriented Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Business Activity Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

System Administration Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36



OverviewwebMethods product suite 7.1 is an integrated set of design tools, run‐time servers, and Internet browser‐based user interfaces that enable you to:

Develop and run integration solutions.

Create and manage a business‐to‐business integration network.

Develop and run composite applications.

Design and run business processes.

Develop and govern a service‐oriented architecture.

Monitor and improve the performance and efficiency of business activity.

webMethods product suite 7.1 also offers tools for installing and upgrading webMethods products, and deploying assets developed in the suite from one environment to another.

This chapter describes the webMethods products you use to perform each of the tasks listed above.

Integration SolutionsIntegration solutions enable disparate resources to share business data. Resources include software applications such as SAP and Siebel, and systems such as databases and mainframe systems. Common integration solutions include:

Synchronization. For example, two stores in a chain of retail stores maintain customer, product SKU, and product price information. One store maintains the information in a database and the other in a mainframe system. When information is added to or changed in the resource at one store, an integration solution updates the resource at the other store.

Propagation. For example, a human resources (HR) person user enters data for a new employee in a Web application and an integration solution propagates the data to a

Note: Some webMethods products are used to perform more than one task, and therefore are discussed in more than one section in this chapter.

database

mainframe system

datadata



human resources (HR) database, a retirement plan mainframe system, and an employee benefits application.

Composition. For example, an HR person requests a report on an employee through a Web application. An integration solution gathers the data for the report from an HR database, a retirement plan mainframe system, and an employee benefits application, and then returns the data to the Web application for display in report format.

The webMethods products you use to develop integration solutions are Developer, Integration Server, webMethods Broker, and webMethods adapters.

Web application

HR database

retirement planmainframe system

employee benefits application

datadata

data

request for data

datadata data report

HR database

retirement plan mainframe system

employee benefits application



DeveloperDeveloper is an integrated development environment (IDE) with a graphical interface for developing and testing services. A service is logic that performs a unit of work. For example, a service could post a purchase order received from a customer to an ordering system, or perform a credit check for a loan application. The illustration below shows a service in Developer.

You can develop simple services (that is, services that perform one unit of work) in Developer using the webMethods proprietary flow language, or using other languages such as Java, C/C++, or Visual Basic. You can also develop aggregate services, in which services call other services (for example, to propagate data from one resource to several other resources). Flow language is particularly powerful for developing composite services, in which a service is wrapped around multiple simple or aggregate services that execute in sequential order (for example, to compose a report by gathering data from one resource after another). The wrapper service manages the flow of data from service to service. Any of these types of services can constitute an integration solution. Developer builds your services on Integration Server, which executes the services at run time.

You can incorporate Web services from UDDI registries such as CentraSite GE into integration solutions you build in Developer. Conversely, Developer can create a Web service from any service that resides on Integration Server and can publish the Web service to UDDI registries such as CentraSite GE.



Integration Server Integration Server’s function in integration solutions is the execution of services. Integration Server does the following:

1 Receives requests from client applications and authenticates and authorizes the requesting users.

2 Invokes the appropriate services and passes them input data from the requesting clients.

3 Receives output data from the services and returns it to the clients.

Integration Server supports a wide range of established and emerging standards so you can interact with virtually any business partner that is connected to the Internet.

webMethods BrokerwebMethods Broker is a high‐speed message router that can use asynchronous publish‐subscribe or point‐to‐point messaging. Information producers (publishers) publish data to webMethods Broker and then move on to other activities, while information consumers (subscribers) subscribe to and retrieve the data when convenient. webMethods Broker serves as a mediator that routes data from publishers to subscribers. It can function as the messaging backbone for resources across your enterprise and can support an event‐driven architecture, in which subscribers receive documents and perform specified actions.

webMethods products publish data to webMethods Broker in the form of documents. Each webMethods document is associated with a document type, a schema‐like definition that describes the document’s structure. For example, a document type named PurchaseOrder might describe the structure of data in a purchase order document. You define document types on webMethods Broker and list the subscribers to each document type. When a publisher publishes a document to webMethods Broker, webMethods Broker looks up the subscriber list for that document type and queues the document for the subscribers, each of which retrieves the document and processes it when convenient.

webMethods Broker’s function in integration solution is to act as a message provider. webMethods Broker offers two messaging protocols: a webMethods proprietary messaging protocol, and the Java Message Service (JMS) protocol. For each protocol, you develop custom Broker clients for applications to use to communicate with webMethods

Integration Server supports... Such as...

Transport standards HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP

Message formats MIME, S/MIME

Data standards XML and XML Schema, custom flat file formats with delimited fixed‐ or variable‐length records

Protocols SOAP, XML RPC

Specifications Web Service Description Language (WSDL)



Broker. You develop the custom Broker clients using APIs provided by webMethods Broker. For the webMethods proprietary messaging protocol, webMethods Broker provides Java, C, and C# APIs. For the JMS protocol, webMethods Broker provides a JMS API.

Within the webMethods product suite, Integration Server is the primary document publisher and consumer, and can communicate with webMethods Broker directly using either protocol.

webMethods Broker can also exchange documents with J2EE application servers such as the IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic, JBoss, and SunONE application servers.

AdapterswebMethods adapters connect resources in your enterprise to the webMethods product suite and, through the suite, to each other. While Integration Server supports a variety of standards such as XML, adapters support proprietary transport protocols for specific applications such as SAP, Siebel, JD Edwards, Oracle Applications, and PeopleSoft, and databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, and DB2. Adapters transform data from resource‐specific format into the format using within the webMethods product suite, and vice versa. They enable you to incorporate resources into integration solutions without having to build complex custom code. Adapters run on Integration Server.

Adapters convey data from resources to the webMethods product suite. Adapters can either actively poll resources for new or changed data or passively receive new or changed data from resources. For example, the webMethods JDBC

Adapter can receive data from a database, transform it from the database‐specific format into the webMethods format, and send the transformed data to services on Integration Server for further processing.

Adapters convey data from the webMethods product suite to resources. For example, the JDBC Adapter service can receive data from an Integration Server service, transform it from webMethods format into the format required by the database, and insert it into the database.

adapter services

Integration Server

...data

Integration Server

services

...adapter

data



Business-to-Business IntegrationBusiness to business, or B2B, describes electronic commerce (e‐commerce) transactions between businesses (as opposed to between businesses and consumers). Businesses that engage in electronic e‐commerce transactions are called trading partners, and can include retailers, manufacturers, suppliers, and marketplaces.

E‐commerce transactions between trading partners usually involve the exchange of business documents using automated processes. A B2B integration network, or trading network, consists of a set of trading partners that conduct business by exchanging

mutually agreed‐upon business document types electronically. For example, a trading network might include computer retailers, a computer manufacturer, and computer parts suppliers. The retailers might send purchase order documents to the manufacturer, which returns purchase order acknowledgement, shipping notice, and invoice documents. Similarly, the manufacturer might send purchase order documents to the parts suppliers, and so on.

Some industries have developed e‐commerce standards for exchanging business documents. For example, many manufacturing companies use the EDI messaging standard to conduct business electronically. An e‐commerce standard typically defines the business document types and transport protocols for trading partners to use in exchanges, and specifies document exchange rules.

The webMethods products you use to build and manage a trading network are Trading Networks and webMethods eStandards Modules.

purchase order

shipping notice



Trading NetworksYou use Trading Networks to build and manage a peer‐to‐peer or hub‐and‐spoke network of trading partners. Trading Networks enables trading partners to exchange business documents in XML and structured flat‐file formats.

Trading Networks offers a browser‐based user interface for defining and administering your trading partners. The illustration below shows a partner profile definition in this user interface.



Trading Networks offers a graphical development tool named Trading Networks Console for building the elements you need to link trading partners, as follows:

Element Purpose

Business document types

Define the business documents that trading partners want to exchange. A business document type can define an industry‐standard document, such as an EDI, RosettaNet, cXML, CBL, or OAG document, or a custom business document.

Processing rules Define how to process business documents. For example, the processing rule for a purchase order you receive from a trading partner might verify the sender’s signature and then submit it to your order management system.

Note: If you need more complicated processing than is possible in Trading Networks Console, you can design a business process in Designer to use in addition to or instead of a processing rule.

Trading Partner Agreements (TPAs)

Customize the way in which documents are exchanged between trading partners. For example, you and a trading partner might use a TPA to specify a custom ID field to include in all business documents.



The illustration below shows a processing rule definition in Trading Networks Console.

Integration Server manages the exchange of business documents among trading partners. When Integration Server receives a document, it processes the document according to the processing rule for that document type.

eStandards ModulesThe webMethods product suite supports e‐commerce standards for various industries. This support comes in the form of webMethods eStandards Modules that require Trading Networks and run on Integration Server. Each eStandards Module defines the industry‐standard or proprietary transport protocol, provides an e‐commerce standard’s business document types, and specifies the standard’s document exchange rules. When Integration Server receives a document that matches a business document type in an eStandards Module, it processes the document according to the document exchanges rules specified in the module.

webMethods provides eStandards Modules for the EDI and ebXML Messaging Service (any industry), RosettaNet (high‐tech), 1SYNC (retail), SWIFT and FIX (financial), and CIDX (chemical) e‐commerce standards.



Composite Applications Framework (CAF) DevelopmentComposite applications present data from multiple resources on one or more Web pages for the end user. Examples of composite applications are corporate Web sites and intranet sites. Composite applications can also be used to create modernized front ends for legacy systems. Suppose you have a legacy mainframe system that stores customer orders and the names of sales representatives. You could create a customer management composite application that pulls that data from the mainframe system and and displays it on a Web page. When the end user clicks an order, the composite application gets the order details from the mainframe system and displays it on another Web page. When the end user clicks a sales representative, the composite application gets customer data from the mainframe system and displays the locations and contact information for the sale representative’s customers on a Google map.

The webMethods products you use to develop composite applications are Designer and My webMethods Server.

DesignerDesigner is an Eclipse‐based graphical development tool for designing two types of composite applications:

Portlet applications. A portlet application consists of one or more portlets and runs on My webMethods Server. End users access the application’s Web pages through the webMethods browser‐based user interface framework, called My webMethods.

Web applications. A Web application consists of one or more Web pages and runs on an application server such as Apache Tomcat, JBoss, or My webMethods Server. End users access the application’s Web pages through the Internet or an intranet.

You create composite applications in Designer by dragging and dropping JavaServer Faces (JSF) controls onto a design canvas. JSF is an application framework for creating Web‐based user interfaces. You configure each JSF control to perform a specific function, such as submitting a command, alerting users, obtaining user input (for example, through check boxes or drop‐down lists), and adding rendering logic to Web pages. Other JSF controls enable you to link and navigate among portlets and Web pages. Designer offers an extensive library of JSF controls.



The illustration below shows a portlet application in Designer.

The Web pages in your composite applications can invoke services. You can drag and drop the services you want to use onto the design canvas from Integration Server or Metadata Library, and Designer helps you provide the necessary configuration information. If you need to develop new services, Designer can launch Developer and Blaze Advisor.

The Web pages can also access and display data stored in databases. You can connect to a database from Designer and then drag and drop database‐related items, such as database tables, that you want to use in the Web pages onto the design canvas.

Composite applications built in Designer can use the latest Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) technology. With this technology, an Ajax engine acts as an intermediary between the user and My webMethods Server, significantly improving My webMethods Server’s response to user input. Composite applications built in Designer comply with the Java Server Faces (JSF) and Java Specification Request (JSR)168 standard.

My webMethods ServerDesigner deploys portlet and Web applications to My webMethods Server. My webMethods Server also hosts portlet applications that provide the user interfaces for webMethods Broker, Trading Networks, Optimize, and Monitor. All composite applications hosted by My webMethods Server display their Web pages in the My webMethods user interface framework. My webMethods Server provides user



management capabilities that enable you to customize the look and feel of Web pages and control user access to them.

My webMethods Server provides a built‐in Jetty Web server that supports both HTTP and HTTPS. You can use an external Web server, or cluster of Web servers, with My webMethods Server (for example, if an external Web server better complies with your corporate IT security policies). My webMethods Server can integrate with the leading Web servers, such as Microsoft Internet Information Server or Apache HTTP Server.

Business Process ManagementA business process is a series of business activities that are performed in a specific order, by a variety of applications, systems, employees, and external businesses, according to defined business rules. Examples of business processes include handling a purchase order from receipt through fulfillment, taking a product from inception to market, and preparing for a new employee. Business processes are more complex and long‐running than integration solutions and can include activities performed by humans.

Business process management enables you to automate business processes. For example, the process of preparing for a new employee could be automated as follows:

1 The hiring manager submits an online form that contains information about the new employee.

2 The submission of the form initiates the first step in the process. This step adds the employee’s information to the internal human resources (HR) database and registers the employee in various systems and applications, such as the enterprise’s email application.

3 The next step in the process uses the enterprise’s trading network to notify the external payroll company to set up an account for the employee.

4 The next step sends the facilities department a task to assign office space and provide office equipment before the employee’s start date.

Business processes typically involve many variables and conditions, and the longer they run, the more likely the variables and conditions are to change. For example, a supplier might temporarily run out of parts needed to fill orders. Business process management enables you to act on running processes in response to such changes; in the example above, you could suspend order fulfillment processes until parts are available again.

The webMethods products you use to design business processes are Designer, Blaze Advisor, Metadata Library, and CentraSite GE. The webMethods products you use to execute business processes are Integration Server, webMethods Broker, and My webMethods Server.



Designer Designer is an Eclipse‐based graphical development tool for designing business processes.

You create a business process in Designer by dragging and dropping graphical representations of process steps onto a design canvas, then configuring each step to perform a specific function. For example, process steps can:

Receive data.

Invoke services.

Invoke other processes.

Publish data for other processes and services to consume.

Send activities, called tasks, to humans to perform.

Specify transitions that direct the process flow of execution, such as splits and joins, if/else conditions, step timeouts, and error handling.

The illustration below shows a business process in Designer.

For process steps that invoke services, you can drag and drop the services from Integration Server or Metadata Library onto the design canvas. If you need to develop new services for a business process, Designer can launch Developer and Blaze Advisor.



You develop tasks (that is, activities performed by humans as part of a business process) as portlet applications in Designer. Within task portlet applications, you develop user interfaces that present the tasks to end users. You can also define actions that you want to occur in response to specified conditions. For example, you can define an action that assigns critical priority to tasks that are not completed within a specified period of time.

The user interfaces for a task display as Web pages in the My webMethods user interface framework. The illustration below shows a task user interface in My webMethods.



Fair Isaac Blaze AdvisorwebMethods product suite includes an implementation of Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor. Blaze Advisor is a graphical development tool for creating rules to use in business processes. Blaze Advisor lets you develop rules using decision trees and tables. The illustration below shows a rule decision tree.

Blaze offers a browser‐based user interface that enables business administrators to make simple changes to rules without having to involve a developer. For example, after a developer builds the decision tree shown above in Blaze Advisor, a business administrator could display it in the browser‐based user interface and easily add new car models to the table.

Blaze Advisor deploys rules to Integration Server, which generates them as rule services and executes them at business process run time. You can view and test deployed rule services in Developer just like other services.



Integration Server and webMethods Broker Integration Server’s function in business process management is the execution of business processes. All process steps except for tasks run on Integration Server. Any Integration Server that runs process steps is equipped with a Process Engine that controls and directs process execution.

Designer deploys the run‐time logic for process steps onto Integration Server. Blaze Advisor deploys rules to Integration Server, which generates them as rule services. Integration Server executes all process steps and all services invoked by process steps.

To improve performance and reliability, you can distribute process steps across multiple Integration Servers. The Integration Servers connect to a webMethods Broker that routes the process data from Integration Server to Integration Server.

If a process step exchanges documents with an external trading partner, the step sends the document to Integration Server, which sends the document to the partner. The partner returns a document to Integration Server, which returns the document to the process so it can continue to its next step.

My webMethods ServerMy webMethods Server’s function in business process management is the execution of tasks. Designer deploys tasks to My webMethods Server, where they are invoked by processes at run time. Each My webMethods Server that runs tasks is equipped with a Task Engine that controls and directs task execution. At run time, data and control pass from Process Engines to Task Engines and back again until the business process completes.

Integration Server

...Process Engine

webMethods Broker

Integration ServerProcess Engine

...

Integration ServerProcess Engine



Collaborative Composite Application and Business Process DesignThe webMethods product you use to support collaborative design of portlet applications and business processes is Metadata Library.

Metadata LibraryIn a collaborative design environment, Metadata Library operates as a shared database of metadata about assets that are stored in Designer, Integration Server, and CentraSite GE. Designer users use the assets in portlet applications and business processes.

When a Designer user references an asset in Metadata Library from a portlet application or business process, the metadata for the asset appears in Designer, which is helpful for the current user and all subsequent users. For example, if a business process step references a service in Metadata Library, any Designer user who views that step can see the service’s name, description, and host Integration Server.

Designer users can browse Metadata Library assets by asset type or by location. The illustration shows a browse by location. Designer users can also search Metadata Library for specified assets using various criteria. For example, a user who wants a process step to produce a certain document type could search for all services that produce that document type, and potentially use one of those services in the process step.

Designer users can also browse assets in Metadata Library to determine their dependencies. Doing so helps a user to avoid changing an asset that is being used by

Product Metadata

Designer Metadata Library can store metadata about assets such as portlet applications, business processes, process steps, and tasks. For portlet applications, for example, Metadata Library stores metadata such as portlet application names and descriptions. For business processes, Metadata Library stores metadata such as process names and descriptions, process steps, services called by steps, and the services’ inputs and outputs.

Integration Server

Metadata Library can store metadata about assets such as services and WSDLs. For services, for example, Metadata Library stores metadata such as service names, descriptions, and host Integration Servers.

CentraSite GE

Metadata Library can store metadata about Web services. For example, Metadata Library stores metadata such as Web service names, business units, versions, and categorizations.



other users, or lets the user know with whom to consult before making changes. The illustration below shows a browse for a flow service’s dependencies in Metadata Library.

Metadata Library and CentraSite GE have some similar features, but are used differently. If you want to use services developed in the webMethods product suite with Designer, only Metadata Library is necessary. If you want to use Web services from third‐party applications such as BEA or Microsoft .NET with Designer, CentraSite GE is required. CentraSite GE publishes Web services to Metadata Library, from which you can drag and drop them into Designer.

Service-Oriented ArchitectureService oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style in which development groups within an enterprise create and maintain Web services in accordance with defined standards of quality, consistency, and interoperability. The enterprise maintains the Web services in a registry and exposes the registry to application developers inside, and sometimes outside, the enterprise. Developers can combine and reuse the Web services to more quickly and easily create a variety of business applications.

Web services in an SOA are distributed over a network, and are made available to developers through a mediator such as an enterprise service bus (ESB). The mediator provides a layer of abstraction that prevents applications that use the Web services from having to know where the services are running or which languages, technologies, or platforms were used in their development.

The webMethods product you use to support an SOA is CentraSite GE.



CentraSite GECentraSite GE (Governance Edition) provides the infrastructure you need for design‐time and run‐time governance of your SOA.

For design‐time governance, CentraSite GE provides a registry, or catalog, in which service providers can register re‐usable assets such as Web services, XML schemas, and assets that are customized for your environment, such as reusable Java libraries, BPEL documents, and portlets. The CentraSite GE catalog is an implementation of the Java API for XML Registries (JAXR) specification, and is UDDI v2‐ and UDDI v3‐compliant. CentraSite GE provides a browser‐based user interface that lets developers browse the catalog for Web services to use, and lets service providers submit Web services to the catalog. The illustration below shows the CentraSite GE Web service catalog.

CentraSite GE can but does not have to store the asset itself in the catalog. A catalog entry might simply describe an asset or indicate its availability. The actual asset itself might reside elsewhere in your enterprise

You can control design‐time events such as the acceptance of new assets into the catalog and the modification of existing assets in the catalog through policies. For example, you could define a policy that new services submitted to the catalog must be approved by specified individuals. You can also use policies to define review and approval processes, perform quality assurance tests, and issue notifications when new services are added to the catalog or the interfaces for existing services are about to be modified.



For run‐time governance, CentraSite GE enables you to define security, audit logging, and routing policies that control the usage of Web services in the catalog. Policies specify actions the mediator is to perform when a client application requests a service. For example, actions can prevent unauthorized access to a service, route a request to the appropriate service, record events to a logging system, or monitor performance attributes and send alerts when specified thresholds are exceeded. The illustration below shows a policy definition in CentraSite GE.

CentraSite GE offers a mediator named X‐Broker. You can also use third‐party mediators such as WebSphere DataPower, Layer 7, and Progress Actional.

Developer can register Web services with the CentraSite GE catalog, and integration solutions built in Developer can incorporate Web services from the CentraSite GE catalog. CentraSite GE can publish Web services to Metadata Library so Designer users can use the Web services in composite applications and business processes.



Business Activity MonitoringBusiness activity monitoring enables an enterprise to monitor the performance of the resource and business processes it uses to deliver goods and services. Business optimization enables an enterprise to use the monitoring information to proactively manage and optimize those resources and business processes.

Resource and business process data is monitored via key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of an enterprise. For example, in an order management process, you might define KPIs to monitor the number of orders received, their monetary amounts, and whether they were processed successfully. KPIs monitor data for exceptions and trends and help you create solutions.

The webMethods products you use for business activity monitoring are Optimize and Monitor.

OptimizeOptimize enables you to monitor the following in real time:

Resources, such as webMethods products, third‐party applications, databases, equipment such as printers and disk drives, and devices such as routers and network servers.

Business processes.

Transactions between trading partners in Trading Networks.

Optimize uses the monitoring data it collects to help you quickly identify problem areas and analyze trends so you can improve performance, eliminate issues, and take advantage of business opportunities. For business processes, Optimize uses Six Sigma to help you systematically improve business processes by measuring the number of defects in a process and helping you focus on the most important issues. After Optimize has learned enough about your enterprise, it can predict problems and opportunities so you



can act preemptively. The illustration below shows a prediction by Optimize of the next time a resource will fail.

With Optimize, you define the KPIs that reflect the critical success factors of your enterprise. For resources, KPIs might include Integration Server thread availability and webMethods Broker queue lengths. For business processes, KPIs might include margin, revenue, customer satisfaction, and inventory levels. For Trading Networks, KPIs might include order and invoice volumes, average order amount, and percentage of successful and failed transactions.



For resources, you gather KPI readings at specified intervals using Optimize data collectors, as indicated below. webMethods Broker routes the KPI readings from the data collectors to Optimize.

For business processes, you specify KPIs when designing the business process in Designer. At run time, webMethods Broker routes the KPI readings from the Integration Servers that execute the business process steps to Optimize.

You then establish rules in Optimize to define conditions that indicate problems with your resources or business processes. Examples of problems are when Integration Server thread availability falls below 20%, or when the processing time for a shipping process is two standard deviations above normal. Optimize compares KPI readings against the rules you define and detects whether a monitored resource or business process is out of compliance. Optimize displays the results in its user interface in the browser‐based My webMethods framework. Optimize also measures current KPIs against KPIs gathered over time and displays trends in its user interface (for example, whether your revenue is trending upward or downward, and whether that trend is typical or atypical). Optimize can send alerts to users you identify, who can then act to correct negative trends, and take advantage of positive trends.

Data Collector Gathers this data...

Infrastructure Data Collector

Resource and operational data for webMethods run‐time products (Integration Servers, webMethods Broker, Trading Networks, and adapters). Infrastructure Data Collector is pre‐configured with KPIs to collect specific data for those components. It also supports user‐defined KPIs.

Web Service Data Collector

Operational data about applications or equipment in your enterprise (such as databases, printers, or disk drives) from client applications.

SNMP Data Collector

Operational data for devices such as bridges, hubs, routers, and network servers that are accessible through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agents.



Optimize includes a business process dashboard that lets you manage processes, investigate root causes behind process problems, and gain insight into general process behavior. The process dashboard is the primary tool you use to optimize your business processes. The illustration below snows the process dashboard.

The following are examples of ways an enterprise can use Optimize.

A highly‐decentralized food distribution company could use Optimize to monitor the health and performance of its servers and applications. The company uses Optimize’s predictive capabilities to alert users to probable system outages. In most cases, staff avoids actual system outages by making adjustments based on Optimize’s root cause analysis.

A multi‐national consumer electronics company could use Optimize to monitor a partially‐outsourced manufacturing process. The company identifies the critical steps in the process, creates KPIs to monitor the steps, and defines rules that send alerts about operational abnormalities. Rather than having to continually compute and adjust alert thresholds, the company depends on Optimize’s ability to learn what is normal.

A satellite television company could use Optimize to correlate subscription events so it can identify customers that might be cheating the billing system. By collecting, filtering, and correlating thousands of subscription events, Optimize narrows down the potential problem accounts into a manageable list.



MonitorMonitor reads run‐time data that webMethods products such as Integration Servers and Process Engines log for services, business processes, and documents, and displays the data in the Monitor user interface in the browser‐based My webMethods framework. Typical logged data includes service or business process start date and time, status, duration, successful completion or failure, and errors. You can take action based on the logged data from the Monitor user interface; for example, you can resubmit services, business processes, and documents, and suspend and resume business processes.

Monitor also offers a public API so you can build your own front‐end application for displaying and working with the logged data.



System Administration ToolsSystem administration tools include the webMethods Installer, database scripts and the webMethods Database Component Configurator, and webMethods Deployer.

webMethods InstallerThe webMethods Installer is an application that enables you to install, upgrade, and uninstall the webMethods product suite. The installer offers a wizard in both GUI and command line modes that guides you through each of those activities. The illustration below shows the product selection tree list in the webMethods Installer wizard.

In addition to installing using the wizard or command line mode, you can create an installation script and run it on multiple machines to create identical installations. You can download webMethods products into an installation image and give the image to users who cannot go outside your corporate firewall to install from.



Database Scripts and the Database Component ConfiguratorwebMethods provides database scripts you can use to create, migrate, or drop the database components you need to store webMethods product suite data. webMethods also offers the Database Component Configurator for performing those tasks. The configurator is an application that offers a GUI and a command line mode. The illustration below shows the Database Component Configurator in GUI mode.



DeployerDeployer is a graphical tool that lets you deploy assets developed in the webMethods product suite from one environment to another. For example, you might want to deploy business processes from a development environment to a test or production environment. The illustration below shows a deployment project containing assets to be deployed.


2 Administering the webMethods Product Suite

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Installing webMethods Products and Setting Up Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Upgrading Products and Migrating Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Configuring Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Monitoring System Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Monitoring and Managing Services and Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Deploying Assets from One Environment to Another . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Scaling the webMethods Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Archiving or Deleting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46



OverviewThis chapter provides a high‐level description of the products you use and the activities you perform to administer the webMethods product suite.

Installing webMethods Products and Setting Up Databases

ToolswebMethods Installer

Database scripts or Database Component Configurator

Installing or Uninstalling ProductsUse the webMethods Installer to:

Install and uninstall webMethods products for end users.

Update installed webMethods products with new product components, such as packages or plug‐ins.

Creating or Dropping Database ComponentsUse database scripts or the Database Component Configurator to:

Create and drop storage and database users.

Create and drop database components for webMethods products.

Connecting Products and Database ComponentsUse webMethods product interfaces to:

Connect webMethods products to each other.

Connect webMethods products to database components.

GuidewebMethods Installation Guide



Upgrading Products and Migrating DataUpgrade webMethods products when new releases come out and migrate their data.

GuidewebMethods Upgrade Guide

Configuring ProductsYou use a variety of interfaces to configure webMethods products.

GuidesFair Isaac Blaze documentation

webMethods Broker Administrator’s Guide

Designer online help

To do this... Use this interface...

Configure webMethods Broker, Metadata Library, My webMethods Server*, Optimize engines, Task Engine, and Trading Networks Server.

Manage users, groups, and roles.

Manage external directory services.

Set up calendars for use by processes and tasks.

My webMethods Administration tab

Configure Infrastructure Data Collector. Infrastructure Data Collector Administrator

Configure Integration Server, Monitor, and Process Engine.

Set up clusters of Integration Servers and Process Engines.

Set up Integration Server server logging, and session and error audit logging.

Integration Server Administrator

Configure Designer.

For business processes, map logical servers to physical Integration Servers on which process steps are to run.

Designer

Configure Blaze Advisor. Blaze Advisor*You can also configure My webMethods Server using a browser‐based administrative interface.



webMethods Integration Server Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Logging Guide

webMethods Metadata Library User’s Guide

webMethods Monitor User’s Guide

Getting Started with My webMethods

My webMethods Server Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Central Configuration and Deployment Guide (for Optimize and Metadata Library)

Optimize administrator’s and user’s guides

webMethods Process Engine User’s Guide

webMethods Task Engine User’s Guide

webMethods Trading Networks Administrator’s Guide

Monitoring System Resources

ProductOptimize

Setting Up MonitoringIn the My webMethods user interface, use the Administration > System-Wide and Analytics tabs to set up monitoring, as follows:

Identify webMethods products for which the Infrastructure Data Collector is to collect data.

Configure KPIs to monitor the collected data.

Define rules for Optimize to use to evaluate collected KPI readings and notify you when a problem resource requires your attention.

Define actions you want Optimize to take automatically when a problem arises.

Define predictions you want Optimize to make about potential problems.

Work with developers to configure the Web Service Data Collector to collect monitoring data. Use the Infrastructure Data Collector Administrator user interface to configure SNMP to collect monitoring data.



Analyzing Monitoring DataIn the My webMethods user interface, use the Monitoring > System-Wide tab to view and analyze monitoring data, as follows:

Find resources that out of compliance and view information about the rules that were violated.

View a high‐level summary of all resources and the performance of the entire enterprise.

Compare the performance of different KPIs for resources and analyze historical KPI performance to find positive or negative trends.

View alerts about resources that Optimize predicts will go out of compliance in the future.

GuidesGetting Started with My webMethods

webMethods Optimize for Infrastructure Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Optimize for Infrastructure User’s Guide

Monitoring and Managing Services and Documents

ProductsIntegration Server

Monitor

TasksIn the My webMethods user interface, use the Monitoring > Integration tab to monitor and manage documents and services that are running across the enterprise. You can view logged audit data for documents and services, including logged errors, and resubmit documents and services.

If you want to monitor services that are running on a single Integration Server only, you can use the Integration Server Administrator user interface for that Integration Server. From that interface, you can view logged audit data for services, including errors, but you cannot resubmit services. If you want to resubmit services, you must use the My webMethods user interface.



GuideswebMethods Integration Server Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Logging Guide



Deploying Assets from One Environment to Another

ProductDeployer

TasksUse Deployer to deploy webMethods product suite assets from one environment to another. For example, you can deploy services that have been developed in a development environment to a test or production environment.

GuidewebMethods Deployer User’s Guide

Scaling the webMethods Environment

ProductswebMethods Broker

Integration Server

My webMethods Server

TasksYou can scale the webMethods product suite to support global deployments and enterprise‐level transaction volumes. You can deploy products incrementally, adding them when and where they are needed.

You can improve service and business process performance significantly by clustering Integration Servers using a third‐party load balancer. Clustering distributes requests



across Integration Servers. The load balancer receives all client application requests and routes each to the Integration Server whose processing load is the lowest at that moment. Similarly, you can improve composite application performance by clustering My webMethods Servers.

You can increase messaging capacity by deploying webMethods Brokers in a distributed configuration called a territory. Territories spread your overall message load across multiple webMethods Brokers. webMethods Brokers within a territory share knowledge of document types and subscriptions. When a client application publishes a document to a webMethods Broker, the webMethods Broker distributes the document to all webMethods Brokers in the territory that have subscribers to that document type.

The use of clustering and territories eliminates single‐point‐of‐failure weaknesses associated with hub‐and‐spoke systems. For example, when you distribute work across multiple webMethods Brokers, the failure of one webMethods Broker affects only the client applications of that webMethods Broker; other webMethods Brokers and their clients continue to operate. Similarly, if an Integration Server in a cluster or a webMethods Broker in a territory must be taken down for maintenance, the remaining Integration Servers in the cluster or webMethods Broker in the territory can continue processing client requests.

For critical solutions that require automatic fault detection and fail‐over, you can deploy webMethods Brokers in high‐availability configurations using clusters of high‐availability hardware and third‐party, fault‐tolerant servers. In this type of configuration, if a webMethods Broker fails, the webMethods Broker and its active processes are immediately swapped out to a backup webMethods Broker. The clients automatically re‐establish sessions with the backup webMethods Broker and continue processing.

GuideswebMethods Broker Administrator’s Guide

Running webMethods Broker in a High‐Availability Cluster (available from Software AG Professional Services)


webMethods Integration Server Clustering Guide




Archiving or Deleting Data

ProductsMonitor

Trading Networks

Optimize

TasksYou use these interfaces to archive or delete webMethods product suite data from RDBMSs:

GuideswebMethods Monitor User’s Guide


Optimize administrator’s guides


To do this... Use this interface...

Archive or delete audit logging data for documents, services, and business processes using Monitor

My webMethods Administration > Business tab

Archive or delete Trading Networks data

My webMethods Administration > Integration tab, in conjunction with Integration Server Administrator or Developer

Purge Optimize data Optimize stored procedures


3 Developing Integration Solutions

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Developing an Integration Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Implementation Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51



OverviewThis chapter provides a high‐level description of the products you use and the activities you perform to develop an integration solution.

ProductswebMethods Broker

Developer

Integration Server

Monitor

Developing an Integration SolutionThe primary elements in integration solutions are services, so the main product you use to develop your integration solutions is Developer. You can develop most integration services in the webMethods flow language, although you can also use Developer to develop services in Java, C/C++, or Visual Basic.

The webMethods flow language lets you wrap a sequence of services within a single service, called a flow service, and manage the flow of data among them. For example, you might create a flow service that receives employee address change data from a Web application and executes services that do the following:

1 Enter the address change in an employee benefits application.

2 Invoke the webMethods JDBC Adapter to enter the address change in an HR database.

3 Invoke Trading Networks to send the change to an external payroll company.

4 Log confirmation that the resources have been updated to an audit log file.

Developer has extensive data mapping capabilities that allow you to drag and drop data fields from service to service. You can also specify that a flow service should branch to different services based on a dynamic real‐time value.

When you develop a service in Developer, you specify the inputs and outputs for the service. You can create document types to define the service’s inputs and outputs. Document types are reusable; that is, if two services have identical inputs, you can use the same document type to specify the inputs for both services. If you create an integration solution that uses webMethods Broker and its publish‐subscribe model, you must use document types to define service inputs and outputs.



When working in Developer, you are always connected to an Integration Server; Developer builds and edits services directly on the Integration Server. Integration Server comes with a library of built‐in services that you can use in your integration solutions. In addition, Developer can connect to a UDDI registry such as CentraSite GE; you can browse the available Web services and use them in your integration solutions.

If an integration solution must interact with an application for which webMethods provides an adapter, you can create services that invoke services in the adapter. For example, an integration solution that needs to enter data in a database could include services that invoke JDBC Adapter services that insert or delete data.

You can chain any type of services to form a simple integration process.

Service development is an iterative process of building, testing, and correcting (debugging) your code. Developer provides a range of tools to assist you during the testing and debugging phases. You can test services with input values you specify manually, inspect the results, and investigate errors. You can run services in “debug” mode, which enables you to monitor a flow service’s execution path.

Multiple Developer users can collaborate on an integration solution, developing different pieces of the integration solution and then deploying the pieces to a single Integration Server for testing. Developer enables you to lock objects you are working with, and can interact with a third‐party version control system (VCS) repository.

You can set up audit logging for services and documents so the system administrator can find and handle problems. If you chained services to form an integration process, you can set up audit logging for that as well.

Implementation ExamplesYou can implement integration solutions in a wide variety of ways. Below are some examples.

SynchronizationSuppose you want to synchronize customer information between Siebel and a mainframe system. You set up the webMethods Siebel Adapter to interact with the Siebel application and the webMethods EntireX Adapter to interact with the mainframe system.

To get data from Siebel to the mainframe system, you have the Siebel Adapter monitor the Siebel application for new or changed data. The adapter transforms the data from Siebel’s proprietary format into webMethods internal

format and passes it to Integration Server. Integration Server processes the data and then passes it to the EntireX Adapter, which transforms it into the mainframe system’s format

service

dataservice

data

data adapter data

Integration Server



and inserts it into the system. To get data from the mainframe system to Siebel, you use the same process, in reverse.

PropagationSuppose you want HR people to change employee information using a Web application, and you want to propagate the changes to the HR database, the employee benefits application, and the retirement plan mainframe system. You develop the following:

A portlet application in Designer that provides a user interface for entering employee information and passes the data entered on the form to Integration Server for processing.

A synchronous service that receives the data from Integration Server, simultaneously invokes the three services described below, waits for confirmation from the three services, and then returns the confirmation to the portlet application to display to the user.

A JDBC Adapter service and two other services that insert the data into the database, mainframe system, and benefits application, respectively, and return confirmations to the synchronous service described above.

CompositionSuppose HR wants to create reports containing employee information from the HR database, the retirement plan mainframe system, and the employee benefits application. You want to use webMethods Broker and its publish‐subscribe model to route the information. You develop the following:

A portlet application in Designer that provides a user interface for requesting the report, publishes the request to webMethods Broker, and displays the returned data in report form to the user.

A synchronous JDBC Adapter service to extract data from the database.

Two synchronous services that extract data from the mainframe system and the benefits application.

data

data

data

service service

service

adapter service

data

Integration Server

portlet application



An asynchronous flow service that wraps the three services described above and maps the data from service to service.

A trigger on Integration Server that subscribes to the report request on webMethods Broker and invokes the flow service when Integration Server receives the request.

GuidesAdapter guides

webMethods Composite Applications Framework (CAF) Development Center (http://www.ajax‐softwareag.com/sdk)

CentraSite Governance Edition User’s Guide


All Developer documentation

webMethods Integration Server Built‐in Services Reference

webMethods Integration Server JMS Client Developer’s Guide

webMethods Integration Server Schema Reference

webMethods Messaging Programmer’s Guide

webMethods Monitor User’s Guide (for information about integration processes)

adapter service

Integration Server

replyservice

report request

flow service

webMethods Broker

trigger

data data data

portlet application


http://www.ajax-softwareag.com/sdk

4 Designing Business Processes

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Designer Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

High-Level Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Detailed Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57



OverviewThis chapter provides a high‐level description of the products you use and the activities you perform to design a business process.

ProductsBlaze Advisor

Designer

Developer

Integration Server

Metadata Library

Designer PerspectivesDesigner offers five perspectives for designing business processes: Business Analyst, Process Developer, My webMethods, Process Debugger, and Simulation. A major feature of Designer is its collaborative focus, which allows users with different types of expertise to work together on different aspects of a process. Each of these perspectives supplies the tools needed by a particular category of users.

High-Level DesignThe Business Analyst perspective allows an expert in your company’s procedures and business rules to design a business process without having to get involved in developing the underlying technology. This perspective offers a wide range of graphical representation and documentation tools.

The Business Analyst perspective lets you focus on architecting the high‐level design of a business process and explaining the process to other team members. You define the steps in the business process, rules that dictate the order of the steps, and rules that specify the circumstances under which each step should run. You can use swimlanes to identify the departments that are responsible for performing each step.

You can document the requirements of the business process to help guide the other team members. For example, you can do the following:

Specify the input that each process step requires and the output that each process step should produce.

Identify humans who are involved in the process (for example, a facilities manager, to set up office space).



Specify how you want errors handled.

List KPIs you want to track so you can measure the effectiveness of the process (for example, the time it took to set up the office space).

Detailed Implementation

Developing the Business ProcessThe Process Designer perspective offers an extensive set of programming tools that enable a technical user to focus on the detailed implementation of a business process. You receive a new process, as designed and documented by the Business Analyst perspective user, and you work in the Process Designer perspective to configure the pieces of the process. For example, you configure steps to:

Subscribe to documents on or publish documents to webMethods Broker.

Invoke integration services, Blaze rules services, or Web services.

Invoke tasks, other business processes, or Trading Networks.

You identify the necessary documents, services, tasks, and other business processes. From Designer, you can do the following:

Browse Integration Servers for existing document types and services, and drag and drop them onto the design canvas.

Browse Metadata Library for document types, services (including Web services from CentraSite GE), tasks, and business processes, and reference these assets from process steps.

Launch Developer so you can develop new services, create document types for service inputs and outputs, and copy the document types to webMethods Broker.

Launch Blaze Advisor so you can develop new Blaze rule services.

You define step transitions that specify the flow of control or passing of data between steps. Transitions can connect steps, define conditions such as branches or joins, or specify the action to take if a step fails or throws an error.

Detailed process implementation is an iterative procedure that involves developing, testing, and correcting your code. Designer’s Simulation perspective enables you to test a process by sending a document through it. Among other things, simulation enables you to:

Discover business process bottlenecks, points of failure, and time lags.

Predict business process behavior in multiple scenarios.

Compare the behavior (performance, utilization, cost, and so on) of two or more different processes, or of two or more versions of the same process.



You can debug the business process using the debugging tools offered by Designer’s Process Debugger perspective and then simulate the process again, and so on until the process meets your requirements.

Within each business process, you set the maximum level for audit logging for that process. The business administrator who monitors processes will refine this setting later to suit his needs. You also define quality of service settings that determine how the process executes at run time and that let you balance process performance, reliability, visibility, and control. For example, you can choose between improving performance by storing process run‐time data in RAM or improving reliability by persisting the data.

Also within each process, you can define KPIs that you want Optimize to monitor.

When you are done developing the business process, you map related process steps to logical servers, and then work with the system administrator to map each logical server to the physical Integration Server on which the steps should run. You then deploy the process steps from Designer to the target Integration Servers. Designer creates a package containing run‐time execution information on each of the target Integration Servers.

Developing TasksIf a business process you are developing includes human activities, you use the My webMethods perspective to develop tasks. Tasks are created within a special type of portlet application called task application projects. You can create a single task within a project, or you can group multiple related tasks within a project.

The user interfaces you create in the task application project display to end users in My webMethods, but you can preview the interfaces within Designer and adjust them as necessary. The business administrator will assign the tasks to individuals or roles later.

You can define how you want a task to behave when certain events occur. For example, you can specify that the task status should change to Critical when an uncompleted task reaches its expiration date. Designer provides a variety of built‐in actions you can use, or you can use a service. You can use any of the methods listed in “Developing the Business Process” on page 55 to invoke services from tasks.

You can run tasks in Designer to test their behavior. You can debug the task, test it again, and so on, until the task meets your requirements.

After you create a task, you can drag and drop it onto a business process. When you are done developing the process, you use Designer to deploy the tasks to My webMethods Server, so the process can invoke the tasks at run time.

The business administrator can define KPIs that you want Optimize to monitor for tasks.

Note: If you want to enable users to work with tasks from a third‐party or custom application, webMethods provides a Web‐services API that lets you build custom applications that include task capabilities and run on My webMethods Server. The custom application user will be able to perform task‐related actions such as viewing his task list, modifying and submitting task data, and deleting tasks.



GuidesBlaze Advisor guides


webMethods Developer User’s Guide


Getting Started with Business Process Management

webMethods Integration Server Built‐in Services Reference

webMethods Process Engine User’s Guide

webMethods Task Engine API and Service Reference

Web Services Developer’s Guide


5 Business Administration and Monitoring

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Business Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Trading Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64



OverviewThis chapter provides a high‐level description of the products you use and the activities you perform to administer, monitor, and analyze business processes, and to administer and monitor Trading Networks transactions.

ProductsOptimize

Monitor

Optimize for B2B

Blaze (browser‐based user interface)

Business ProcessesSeveral instances of a business process or task can run at the same time. For example, your enterprise could hire several new employees at one time, and each new employee would trigger a new instance of the new employee process. For tasks, you could have a purchase order process that sends out an approval request task instance to three different managers. You administer business processes and tasks, but monitor process instances and task instances.

Administering Business ProcessesUse the Administration tab of My webMethods for these types of activities:

Activity Tab

Set up audit logging for business processes. You can track when process instances and individual process steps start running, change status, end successfully, or fail, and you can record the path that each process instance took at run time. The audit logging data displays in My webMethods

Note: Audit logging for tasks occurs automatically; you do not have to set it up.

My webMethodsAdministration > Business

Enable the ability to resubmit specific process steps if problems occur.

Enable business processes so process instances can run, disable business processes so process instances cannot run, and delete business processes.



Monitoring Business Process InstancesUse the Monitoring tab of My webMethods for these types of activities:

Create rules that notify you when a process instance experiences problems.

Define timeouts so you can receive alerts when process steps or tasks run too long.


Assign tasks to My webMethods users or roles. My webMethodsAdministration > System-Wide

Enable tasks so task instances can run, disable tasks so task instances cannot run, and delete tasks.

Configure KPIs to monitor for tasks in general, and enable or disable task monitoring for individual tasks.

Manually start a task (for example, to kick off a business process instance).


Define KPIs to monitor for business processes.

Define predictions you want Optimize to make about potential problems and opportunities.

My webMethodsAdministration > Analytics

Modify Blaze rules services. Blaze browser‐based user interface

Activity Tab

Find process instance problems.

Determine whether process instance problems are being caused by resource problems.

View predictions about problems and opportunities.

My webMethods Monitoring > System-Wide

Determine whether process instance problems are being caused by services or document problems.

My webMethods Monitoring > Integration

Activity Tab



Analyzing and Improving Process Instance PerformanceUse the Monitoring tab of My webMethods for these types of activities:

If process instance problems are not being caused by resource problems:

View the status of all process instances and details about individual process instances.

View an image of the process instance that mirrors the process, with a symbol next to each step that indicates its status.

Suspend the process instance (for example, because an application involved in the process is not running) and later resume it, or stop the instance entirely.

My webMethods Monitoring > Business

If you logged the necessary audit data, edit incorrect data values and resubmit the process instance at a particular step.

Assign task instances to users or roles.

Suspend task instances and resume them, or delete them entirely.

Reactivate tasks that have expired or have been canceled by users.

Compare the performance of different KPIs and analyze historical KPI performance to find positive or negative trends.


Activity Tab

View these types of information so you can adjust business processes to avoid future problems:

KPI rules that process instances have violated.

Six Sigma information for process instances.

Negative trends.

My webMethods Monitoring > System-Wide

Activity Tab



Trading Networks

Administering Trading NetworksUse the Administration tab of My webMethods for these types of activities:

Monitoring TransactionsUse the Monitoring tab of My webMethods for these types of activities:

Analyze information about the performance of processes. My webMethods Monitoring > Business

Generate reports containing aggregate data about:

Processes and process instances.

Users and roles that participate in tasks.

These reports help you identify process steps and tasks that take too long to execute, or that fail more often than other steps and tasks. You can then work with process designers to improve the business processes.

My webMethods Monitoring > Reports

Activity Tab

Query for partner certificates that have expired or are about to expire.

Configure business document types to be monitored.

My webMethods Administration > Integration

Define KPIs to monitor for transactions.

Define predictions of problems and opportunities you want Optimize to make.

My webMethods Administration > Analytics

Activity Tab

Monitor transactions and other data related to exchanging data with trading partners.

My webMethods Monitoring > Integration

Compare the performance of different KPIs and analyze historical KPI performance to find positive or negative trends.


Activity Tab



GuidesGetting Started with My webMethods

Getting Started with Business Process Management


webMethods Optimize for Process Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Optimize for Process User’s Guide

webMethods Task Engine User’s Guide

webMethods Task Engine API and Service Reference


webMethods Trading Networks User’s Guide


6 Setting up Security

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Setting Up Security within the webMethods Product Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Firewall Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67



OverviewThis chapter provides a high‐level description of the products you use and the activities you perform to set up security for webMethods products.

Setting Up Security within the webMethods Product SuiteYou can set up these types of security for products in the webMethods product suite:

For this product... You can...

webMethods Broker

Configure security, including SSL, permissions for clients to publish or subscribe to documents, SNMP traps, and the UNIX syslog.

CentraSite GE Configure security, including HTTPS, users, groups, and access to services for providers and consumers.

Configure Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

Integration Server

Configure SSL/HTTPS, including keystores and truststores, hardware security module (HSM) support, and public key infrastructure (PKI).

Configure listener ports to only accept client requests from specified addresses or domains, and define which services are accessible through each port.

Configure LDAP.

Import X.509 client certificates.

Configure and review security‐related auditing, such as number of times users log in and fail, and unauthorized access attempts.

Generate and manage certificate requests using the webMethods Certificate Toolkit.

My webMethods Server

Configure SSL/HTTPS, including keystores and truststores.

Set up users, groups, and roles and use them to control access to Integration Server services, My webMethods pages, and Trading Networks and Optimize data.

Connect to LDAP or Active Directory (AD) user directories.

Trading Networks

Configure PKI and import X.509 client certificates.

All Change default passwords.

Update products with security fixes from webMethods.



Firewall IssuesMost enterprises shield their internal systems from direct Internet access through a system of inner and outer firewalls. Between the firewalls, in what is called the demilitarized zone (DMZ), they place servers that process requests from the Internet. Depending on your firewall configuration and the security policies at your enterprise, you can deploy the webMethods product suite in a number of configurations within or behind the DMZ. For example, you might deploy Integration Server in the DMZ, and then configure the inner firewall to permit traffic between Integration Server and the rest of the webMethods product suite. You might deploy My webMethods Server behind the inner firewall and use an Apache Web server in the DMZ.

Both of these configurations require opening a “hole” in the inner firewall for inbound Internet traffic. Most security administrators want to minimize the number of holes in the inner firewall because they represent potential avenues of entry for attackers. You can eliminate the need to open a hole in the inner firewall for Internet traffic by deploying Integration Servers in a unique reverse HTTP gateway configuration.

GuideswebMethods Broker Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Broker Administration Java API Programmer’s Guide

webMethods Broker Client Java API Programmer’s Guide

CentraSite Governance Edition Administrator’s Guide

webMethods Developer User’s Guide


webMethods Messaging Programmer’s Guide

webMethods Metadata Library User’s Guide


Optimize administrator’s guides

