Making web services enterprise-ready: Using the WS-Atomic Transaction protocol and WebSphere Application Server

by Konstantin Luttenberger and Oliver Rebmann
Transactions have long been used in business applications to ensure data consistency during complex parallel user operations. Online transactional processing applications have become quite popular, and with the popularity of the Internet and the growing always-online mentality, the mass of users and parallelism of interactions have increased steadily. The WS-Atomic Transaction (WS-AT) protocol extends the reach of traditional transaction behavior to the web services world. This article describes how you can make your web services enterprise-ready using WS-AT in conjunction with IBM® WebSphere® Application Server's transaction, high availability, and failover support. Included here is an introduction to the protocol itself and the WebSphere Application Server specifics involved, along with optimizations and instructions for setting up a high-availabilty, scalable, production-ready environment on which to run your WS-AT enabled web services.

Integrating WebSphere eXtreme Scale transactions with other transactions

by Art Jolin
IBM® WebSphere® eXtreme Scale is a powerful product for scalable high-speed storing and processing of data. WebSphere eXtreme Scale itself is transactional but is often used with other software products that are also transactional. Integrating these transactions, especially integrating WebSphere eXtreme Scale into an XA (global) transaction, can be far from trivial. This article presents two techniques for integrating WebSphere eXtreme Scale and other transactional products so that work for all can be reliably committed in a single transaction that follows ACID principles. Sample code for these techniques is provided, along information to help you understand how the resource adapter that enables WebSphere eXtreme Scale to participate in a global (XA) transaction works.

Understanding connection transitions: Avoiding multi-threaded access to a JCA connection in WebSphere Application Server

by Anoop Ramachandra and Rispna Jain
In addition to providing connection pooling, the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server JCA connection manager enables administrators to establish a pool of connections that can be shared by applications running on an application server. However, the sharing of a JCA connection across multiple threads by an application can result in various exceptions. Here are some of the application coding practices you should avoid that can lead to connection sharing across multiple threads, plus descriptions of the multi-threaded detection capabilities provided by WebSphere Application Server.

Modernized Java-based batch processing in WebSphere Application Server, Part 2: Transaction batch programming model

by Shishir Narain, Nafeezudeen Ahamed and Shashi Pahwa
The Modern Batch feature for IBM® WebSphere® Application Server provides a robust Java™ batch programming model that enables the integration of online and batch processing within an architected framework across multiple platforms. This series describes the programming models that the Modern Batch feature provides and demonstrates the new functionality provided in IBM Rational® Application Developer V8.0 that greatly simplifies the development of batch applications and the associated xJCL required for job submission. Part 1 introduced Modern Batch and showed a sample implementation for the compute-intensive programming model. Part 2 covers the transaction batch model and other aspects of the batch framework, including the various interfaces used to submit and control jobs, and integration with schedulers.

Managing dependencies in migrations and new applications for WebSphere Application Server V8

by Sharad Chandra
This article describes the steps for effectively managing enterprise applications using IBM® Rational® Application Developer V8.0 for IBM WebSphere® Application Server V8.0. It will also provide some insight into investigating the class loading behaviour of WebSphere Application Server through the class loader viewer.

• 

  Step into the Swing era
  by Bob Gibson

  "Recently, I have been working with using Java™ Swing to add graphical user interfaces (GUI) to some of my wsadmin Jython scripts. I was a little intimidated at first by the magnitude of the Java Swing Application Programming Interface (API). However, the more I work with the Swing API and Jython the more I am convinced that it can be easier to develop Jython Swing applications than it is to do the same thing using Java..."

  Read entire column

• 

  Using an adapter service pattern to build a more flexible, low maintenance ESB
  by Paul Ilechko

  "Many companies, over time, have integrated multiple systems in a point to point manner. This might be because the business requirements evolved in an ad hoc way over time, or because they acquired packaged applications that needed to communicate with existing homegrown ones, or because there was a corporate merger and things had to be made to work together quickly. For whatever reason, this results in a situation that can be very time consuming and expensive to maintain. One common approach to resolve this issue is to introduce an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), which replaces the point to point approach with a single, centralized place to integrate systems, and does so in a service-oriented manner. However, if done incorrectly, this can still create maintenance headaches..."

  Read entire article

View all Comment lines columns

Download this issue of the IBM WebSphere Developer Technical Journal for offline reading:

Get this entire issue in PDF format (7.5 MB)

Kindle version available soon!

Also available: complete back issues in PDF and Kindle formats. (See these instructions for downloading Kindle issues.)

Check out recent installments of other recurring columns:

• The Support Authority

  The Support Authority discusses resources, tools, and other elements of IBM Technical Support that are available for WebSphere products, plus techniques and new ideas that can further enhance your IBM support experience.

  • View all Support Authority columns

• The WebSphere Contrarian

  by Tom Alcott
  The WebSphere Contrarian answers questions, provides guidance, and otherwise discusses fundamental topics related to the use of WebSphere products, often dispensing field-proven advice that contradicts prevailing wisdom.

  • View all WebSphere Contrarian columns

• Mission: Messaging

  by T. Rob Wyatt
  Mission: Messaging discusses topics designed to encourage you to re-examine your thinking about IBM WebSphere MQ, its role in your environment, and why you should pay attention to it on a regular basis.

  • View all Mission: Messaging columns

• Innovations within reach

  Innovations within reach features new information and discussions on topics related to emerging technologies, from both developer and practitioner standpoints, plus behind-the-scenes looks at leading edge IBM WebSphere products.

  • View all Innovations within reach columns