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Using the WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance with WebSphere Process Server

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Level: Intermediate

Sobha R. Warrier (sobharwa@in.ibm.com), SOA Architect, SOA Technology Practice, IBM

16 Jan 2008

A WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance is a purpose-built, optimized hardware platform for security and XML-based integration. Using DataPower with WebSphere Process Server in a SOA environment can speed the processing of SOAP requests. This article uses an example to show you how to make SOAP requests from an SCA component.

Introduction

IBM® WebSphere® DataPower® SOA Appliances (hereafter called DataPower) can help you implement innovative SOA solutions by providing data translation, security enforcement, legacy integration, hub mediation, and XML acceleration. DataPower also provides a high-performance Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) processing engine, and this article can help you leverage the XML acceleration capabilities of DataPower.

The article you show you how to use DataPower to process SOAP requests from an SCA component running on WebSphere Process Server. The article shows you how to invoke a service endpoint exposed by DataPower from an SCA component deployed on WebSphere Process Server. You can also use DataPower to provide security for event requests, but this article deals only with XML acceleration and not with event security.

Scenario

The scenario involves a business process that requires different processing of different messages, including operations like validation, enrichment, and transformation on messages or documents to complete a business process. Figure 1 shows a typical process consisting of components for validation, enrichment, application of business rules, and delivery. Validation involves filtering at entry or checking for conditions to avoid messages that do not conform to the expected format or to specific validation conditions. The scenario uses validation conditions specified by the business process and not format validation.

Enrichment involves modifying or adding new information to the existing content to meet the requirements of a downstream process. For example, you might retrieve data from a back-end database and provide it as context data. Business rules are applied on this enriched message or document and delivered to the consumer. The sample process runs on WebSphere Process Server. When requests have a large amount of XML, DataPower enables you to improve the performance because of the minimal software overhead associated with the processing. The steps below show you how to host the event validation service on DataPower.


Figure 1. Sample business process and associated SCA module
Figure 1. Sample business process and associated SCA module


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invoking a service endpoint exposed by DataPower from an SCA component

Here are the high-level steps to invoke a service endpoint exposed by DataPower from an SCA component:

  1. Create a pass-through XML firewall service.
  2. Set up the policy and configure the transform action.
  3. Configure the SCA component to invoke the endpoint exposed by DataPower

1. Creating an XML firewall

  1. Log in to your DataPower box.
  2. Select the XML Firewall icon as shown in Figure 2 below. The XML firewall service provides routing, security, filtering, and monitoring in a XML/SOAP architecture, while the Web service proxy provides these plus extended functionality within a Web services environment. A multi-protocol gateway connects client requests that are transported over one or more protocols to a back-end service that uses the same protocol or a different protocol. A Web application firewall provides security, threat mediation and content processing services for Web-based applications. The XSL Accelerator Service is used to optimize transformation of XML/SOAP with XSLT. Click Help any time during a task to access the online help, or click on the field label to view field-specific help.

    Figure 2. Create XML firewall
    Figure 2. Create XML firewall

  3. Click Add wizard to create a new XML firewall to display the Firewall Wizard screen:

    Figure 3. Configure XML firewall
    Figure 3. Configure XML firewall

  4. Click Next to accept the default Pass Thru option, as the SOAP request should pass through the DataPower box:

    Figure 4. XML firewall wizard
    Figure 4. XML firewall wizard

  5. Enter SoapRequestProcessor in the Name field and click Next:

    Figure 5. Enter name of firewall
    Figure 5. Enter name of firewall

  6. Select loopback-proxy from the list of Firewall Types and click Next:

    Figure 6. Choose firewall type
    Figure 6. Choose firewall type

  7. Choose External_IP alias and port:

    Figure 7. Enter device address and port
    Figure 7. Enter device address and port

  8. The review page appears. Click Commit:

    Figure 8. Commit the configuration
    Figure 8. Commit the configuration

  9. The confirmation page appears. Click View Policy and the policy window will open:

    Figure 9. View Policy
    Figure 9. View Policy

2. Configuring the transform action

  1. In the new policy window, drag the Transform icon onto the processing line between the two existing icons:

    Figure 10. Configure policy
    Figure 10. Configure policy

  2. Double-click the yellow highlights around the Transform icon. A new window opens.
  3. On the Transform configuration page, upload the SoapRequest.xsl processing control file: click Upload, then select the file and you will be returned to the transform action screen, with the appropriate file selected as shown in Figure 11. Change the INPUT type and OUTPUT type:

    Figure 11. Configure transform action
    Figure11. Configure transform action

  4. Click Done and the XSL will be uploaded. You can download the XSL file below.

Step 3. Configure the SCA component to invoke the endpoint exposed by DataPower

  1. The binding address of the Event validation component is changed to the endpoint exposed by DataPower:

    Figure 12. Invoke the endpoint exposed by DataPower
    Figure 12. Invoke the endpoint exposed by DataPower

Conclusion

This article has shown you how to use a WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliance to process SOAP requests from an SCA component running on WebSphere Process Server. The DataPower appliance can be used to process SOAP requests at high performance rates, and the improvement is higher if a large amount of XML processing is involved.




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Download

DescriptionNameSizeDownload method
Code sampleSOAPResponse.zip1 KBHTTP
Information about download methods


Resources



About the author

Sobha R. Warrier is an SOA Architect in the SOA Technology Practice at the IBM India Software Lab in Bangalore, India. She has eight years of experience in software. Her area of expertise is working on incubation efforts involving new products and technologies. She is currently working on building solutions based on event driven architecture. You can contact Sobha at sobharwa@in.ibm.com.




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