WebSphere Adapters nodes

A WebSphere® Adapters node is a message flow node that is used to communicate with Enterprise Information Systems (EIS), such as SAP, Siebel, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft.

The following terms are associated with WebSphere Adapters:
EIS
Enterprise information system. This term is used to describe the applications that form an enterprise's existing system for handling company-wide information. An enterprise information system offers a well-defined set of services that are exposed as local or remote interfaces or both. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are typical enterprise information systems.
EMD
Enterprise Metadata Discovery. A specification that you can use to examine an EIS and get details of business object data structures and APIs. An EMD stores definitions as XML schemas by default, and builds components that can access the EIS. In IBM® App Connect Enterprise you use the Adapter Connection wizard to examine an EIS.
Business object
In a development or production environment, a set of XML schema attributes that represents a business entity (such as an invoice) and the definition of actions that can be performed on those attributes (such as the create and update operations).
The WebSphere Adapters support two modes of communication:
  • Inbound: An event is generated on the EIS and the adapter responds to the event by sending a message to the integration node. The WebSphere Adapters input nodes support inbound communication. When the EIS sends an event to the adapter, a message is propagated from the WebSphere Adapters input node. For example, use an SAPInput node to accept input from an SAP application.
  • Outbound: The integration node uses the adapter to send a request to the EIS. The WebSphere Adapters request nodes support outbound communication. When a message is propagated to the WebSphere Adapters request node, the adapter sends a request to the EIS. For example, use an SAPRequest node to send requests to an SAP application.

The WebSphere Adapters nodes need an adapter component to access the EIS. The input nodes need an inbound adapter component, which allows the EIS to invoke the message flow when an event occurs. The request nodes need an outbound adapter component, which is used by the message flow to invoke a service in the EIS.

The WebSphere Adapters nodes also need XML Schema Definitions (XSD) to ensure that the IBM App Connect Enterprise messages that are propagated to and from the nodes reflect the logical structure of the data in the EIS.

SAP, Siebel, JD Edwards, and PeopleSoft adapters are supported by the following message flow nodes in IBM App Connect Enterprise:
  • SAPInput node
  • SAPRequest node
  • SAPReply node
  • SiebelInput node
  • SiebelRequest node
  • PeopleSoftInput node
  • PeopleSoftRequest node
  • JDEdwardsRequest node
  • JDEdwardsInput node

You can configure the WebSphere Adapters nodes by using properties on the nodes, or by using a policy. For example, you can use an SAP Connection policy to specify the connection details for an SAP system. For more information, see Policy properties.

To effectively maintain the pool of connections to the EIS, you can set a connection timeout value on a policy. For more information, see Configuring EIS connections to expire after a specified time.

The SAPRequest node can also use an identity that is present on an input message, and propagate it to SAP, by using the Propagate property on the security profile that is defined on the node. For more information, see Identity and security token propagation.

To maximize performance and avoid unnecessary data conversion, ensure that messages that are passed to a WebSphere Adapters request node contain the correct data types. The DataObject domain is the default domain when parsing messages that are produced by the WebSphere Adapters request node. However, when passing data to the request node (for example, by using an MQInput node), the use of a different domain can improve performance. For example, use the XMLNSC parser with the MQInput node to parse XML messages.

The mode in which your integration node is working can affect the number of integration servers and message flows that you can deploy, and the type of node that you can use. For example, in Remote Adapter Deployment mode, only adapter-related features are enabled, and the types of node that you can use, and the number of integration servers that you can create, are limited. For more information about the available modes of operation, see Operation modes.

For more information about support for adapters on different operating systems, see IBM App Connect Enterprise system requirements.

The following topics provide an overview of the WebSphere Adapters: