Business process choreography applications

You can run IMS™ conversational transactions in composite business applications by using IMS TM Resource Adapter.

To allow for business flexibility in a service-oriented architecture (SOA), a key implementation is business process choreography. Business process choreography ensures that business applications are made up of flexible and adaptable elements, so you can rapidly change the applications to meet business demands. Instead of having one huge application that cannot be easily modified for new business processes or needs, you compose your business applications based on your business process model. With IMS TM Resource Adapter, you can reuse your IMS conversational transactions in composite business applications that are served by IBM WebSphere® Process Server.

To invoke an IMS conversational application through business process choreography:
  • You must use the client-managed conversation state programming model.

    You must indicate to IMS Connect that this conversation needs a unique conversation ID to keep track of the conversation by setting the IMSInteractionSpec class useConvID property to true in your Service Component Architecture (SCA) component for the business process choreography application.

    This setting triggers IMS to assign a unique conversational token and returns it to IMS Connect in the output message of the first iteration. This conversational token can then be passed back and forth between the business process choreography application and IMS Connect, and onto OTMA.

  • You must use the dynamic interaction specification (InteractionSpec) support that is provided by WebSphere Process Server when you use the SCA enterprise information system (EIS) bindings. The SCA component uses this support to propagate the conversation token to the next component in all subsequent iterations of a conversation or in the SYNC_END_CONVERSATION iteration to end a conversation.
  • Specify commit mode 1 (CM1) with sync level of NONE or CONFIRM in the IMSInteractionSpec object.
  • All iterations of a given IMS conversation must be processed by the same IMS Connect and the same IMS in a non-sysplex environment. This unique conversation ID is not shared between multiple IMS systems.
  • All iterations of a given IMS conversation must use the same conversational ID, port number, IMS Connect, and data store.

For more information about the conversational support provided by IMS Connect and OTMA and related restrictions, see the topic "IMS Connect conversational support" in IMS Version 14 Communications and Connections.

For more information about the dynamic interaction specification support provided in WebSphere Process Server, see the JCA EIS binding-related topics in the WebSphere Process Server documentation.