Oracle Application Server 10g Essentials [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

15.2 Oracle Application Server ProcessConnect

The linkage of business data or
systems leveraged in a corporate business activity is known as
Business Process Integration (BPI).
OracleAS ProcessConnect is designed to enable BPI through a single
middleware service. Integration can extend beyond internal business
processes to suppliers, partners, and customers. The Oracle BAM and
BPO capabilities described earlier in this chapter are designed to
leverage either OracleAS InterConnect or the newer OracleAS
ProcessConnect.

Oracle Corporation expects that OracleAS ProcessConnect will increasingly be used in situations in which OracleAS InterConnect with Oracle Workflow was previously the only choice and where adherence to a Java connector standard is desirable.

In building integrated business processes, the following OracleAS
ProcessConnect concepts are especially important:

Profiles

Contain identification and
contact information

Parties

Contain organizations within a
profile (typically applications or trading partners) that participate
in B2B exchanges

Agreements

Contain specific collaborations, roles,
and communications options describing how two parties will interact

Events

Contain internal definitions of
business data that come from or are sent to a party, including header
information on the party from which the event is coming, information
on the party to which to send the event, event instance creation
time, instance life cycle state, event type definition, and body
elements

In BPI implementations, message exchange and data flow (defined as
data passed as an event) must be in the correct sequence.
Translations and transformations must be recognizable, and data must
be validated. Roles define how data flow events are executed. Figure 15-5 shows a typical OracleAS ProcessConnect flow
with adapter interactions.

Data in the form of messages is received from a party as an

Oracle
record. When OracleAS
ProcessConnect receives this record, it
creates two events:

Native event

Provides an internal
representation of the business data

Application event

Provides a translation of native
event content in a format that can be interpreted by the OracleAS
ProcessConnect

To enable better scalability, a business event can establish a common
structure and vocabulary between parties. As
transformations then take place to and
from common business events, the number of transformations required
is greatly reduced because all parties can use the business event as
a starting point. This efficiency becomes pronounced when four or
more parties exist.

Figure 15-5. OracleAS ProcessConnect adapter interactions

OracleAS ProcessConnect integration projects generally use either
an adapter-centric methodology or
a business process-centric
methodology for development:

Adapter-centric

With this methodology, you model capabilities of parties, adapters,
and delivery channels before creating roles or business processes.

Business process-centric

This methodology starts with roles and business process modeling.

In general, Oracle suggests that you choose the methodology that
creates the more complex portion of the model first. We describe the
OracleAS ProcessConnect modeling tool in the next section and then
delineate typical steps taken in development using each methodology.

15.2.1 Using OracleAS ProcessConnect

The following OracleAS ProcessConnect
components are used to build, deploy, and maintain a business process
integration infrastructure:

Modeling tool

An easy-to-use, web-based business-process modeling tool designed to
support the complete life cycle management of BPI, from modeling to
deployment to monitoring and optimization

Metadata Repository

An OracleAS ProcessConnect metamodel schema in the OracleAS
Infrastructure database

OC4J ProcessConnect

An OracleAS ProcessConnect component that instantiates the modeling
tool and is used by the modeling tool to read and write integration
definitions in the metadata repository

Adapter Framework (AF)

A J2EE connector architecture framework engine that enables Java
applications to read the business process definitions from the
runtime metadata repository to adapters and vice versa

Integration Manager (IM)

An event-driven business process execution engine that interfaces to
AF

The modeling tool provides a modeling interface to design business
processes and to enable business event modeling for common content.
The profile section of the tool enables endpoint modeling
(endpoints are defined as the physical addresses
of trading partners), agreement definitions, and trading partner
management. Wizards guide you through end-to-end basic integration,
adding end-to-end basic event flows and other event flows, and
creating spokes. Version control of integration objects is supported
through an update facility.

Parties (e.g., applications or trading partners) are included in the
integration through the use of adapters. The adapters can be defined
using an adapter exchange protocol for specific tasks or can call
specific actionable files. There are three types of OracleAS
ProcessConnect
adapters:

Technology adapters

HTTP, SMTP, FTP, Oracle database, Oracle AQ, JMS, and Web Services

Packaged application adapters

JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel

Legacy adapters

CICS, IMS/DB, IMS/TM, and Tuxedo

Unlike the older OracleAS InterConnect adapters, OracleAS
ProcessConnect adapters are built to the J2EE Connector Architecture 1.0
specification with extensions to support introspection. Figure 15-6 shows how to select an adapter for use with a
specific application (or party) through the modeling tool.

Figure 15-6. OracleAS ProcessConnect adapter selection

Oracle's E-Business Suite of Applications can be integrated using Database Adapter connectivity to Oracle Applications interface tables, AQ Adapter connectivity with linkage to the Application Business Event System, or Web Service Adapter connectivity in which J2EE-based modules are deployed as Servlets or Business Components for Java.

A deployment section in the
modeling tool provides final validation
of process integration definitions (e.g., processes and profiles).
Once validated, the tool can deploy the configuration from the
design-time repository to a runtime repository.

The deployment engine supports numerous standards, including:

B2B standards (RosettaNet and AS2)

EDI standards (X.12, UN/EDIFACT)

Web Services

SOAP

WSDL

UDDI

Internet transports (HTTP/S, SMTP, FTP/S)

Packaging standards (SOAP 1.1, SMIME 3.0)

Security standards (LDAP, X.509)

Trading partner management (CPP/CPA, TPAML)

RosettaNet, created by a group of technology companies, defines XML-based e-business standards for the exchange of business documents including transport, routing, packaging, security, signals, and trading partner agreements.

All actions in the modeling tool are captured in a metadata
repository via OC4J ProcessConnect. The repository stores definition
models, the results from monitoring of runtime processes, and
administrative actions. An export/import utility enables movement of
integration model objects from one repository to another, which is a
typical procedure when moving from development to production. The
object definitions are exported in XML.

Business processes are triggered in reaction to
events. Such event triggers might
include a state change in a business document, multiple business
event communications, certain integration event behavior, or certain
event stages such as initiation, progress, and completion. Events are
created through the modeling tool or by import of XML schemas. Event
services supported include event validation, translation (from one
format to another), transformation (e.g., semantics such as
one-to-many), mapping where events are similar, and correlation.

The Integration Diagram viewer shows a
high-level view of the entire process integration. Pictured in such a
view or diagram (see Figure 15-7 as an example) is
the business process, other roles
("spokes"), all the endpoint
parties participating in the process at every spoke, and agreements
in place between endpoints (trading partners) and processes. From
this view, you can drill down to a specific event flow diagram.

Figure 15-7. OracleAS ProcessConnect Integration Diagram

When run concurrently, events and activities must use different
business processes. Real-time monitoring of business events and
activities takes place in a reports section of the tool. The
administrative section can be linked to Oracle Enterprise Manager for
configuration and management tasks.

15.2.2 Typical Deployment Sequences

As we noted earlier, the approaches
that Oracle recommends for business process integration using
OracleAS ProcessConnect vary depending on the complexity of the
business processes. Oracle typically suggests an
adapter-centric approach in
situations in which business processes are relatively simple, there
are a small number of parties, and endpoint details are known.

The adapter-centric approach typically involves using the modeling
tool in the following sequence:

Create applications, and add adapter details for each party.

Create native and application events, and select translators for each
party.

Create roles, transformations, business events, and business
processes for each party.

Create agreements between parties.

Create, deploy, test, and validate the configuration before
production.

When more complex business processes are involved, BPI developers use
a business process-centric approach.
This approach includes the following steps, in this order:

Manually create a business process and business event.

Create native and application events and select translators for each
party.

Use the create spoke wizard in the modeling tool.

Create the parties.

Add translators and adapters as needed.