Resources

The projects, folders, and files that you work with in the IBM® App Connect Enterprise Toolkit workspace are called resources. By default, these resources are stored with their metadata in the workspace directory in your local file system. The workspace directory is created the first time that you start the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.

The default locations for the workspace are in the following places:

  • On Linux®, the default workspace directory is created at $HOME/IBM/ACET13/workspace, where user_home is the home directory of the user name that is logged on.
  • On Windows, the default workspace directory is created at C:\Users\user_name\IBM\ACET13\workspace, where user_name is the user name that is logged on.

You can create projects in other directories in addition to the workspace directory. You can maintain multiple workspaces by specifying a new location at the prompt when you start your IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit session.

Typically, you edit and view IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit resources in the Application Development view in the Integration Development perspective.

Resource editors do not automatically reflect the changes that you make in one window in additional windows that you have opened to view the same resource. Close and reopen additional windows each time that you update a resource in an editor session.

Types of resource

You can create and work with three basic types of resource:

Source files
Source files are resources that you create to develop integration solutions. When you create certain resources, such as message flows and message maps, they must be stored in containers (applications, integration services, libraries, or integration projects). In the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit, these resources are grouped by file type in folders within the container hierarchy for ease of reference. Other resources, such as projects and adapter connections, can exist outside a container, and are listed under Independent Resources.
Note: The layout of the resources in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit might not be identical to the layout of the same resources in the file system. For more information, see Resource management overview.

You can create resources from a pattern more than once to give unique pattern instances with different configurations, see Patterns. The resources for each pattern instance are contained within a single pattern instance project. The pattern instance project contains links to all projects that contain the resources that are created as a result of generating a pattern instance from your configuration, such as message flows, Java™ classes for JavaCompute nodes, ESQL modules, message maps, test client, XML files, and style sheet files.

Supporting files

There are a number of files that maintain information that supports other activities. For example, .broker files contain definitions of integration node connections and .mbtest files contain the steps that define a test that you use with the Test Client to debug your applications.

Deployable files

Deployable files are included in a BAR file and deployed to the integration node where they process messages. For more information about BAR files, see BAR file contents.

References between files

Resources can refer to other resources, for example, a message flow can refer to subflows or maps, but any files on which a resource depends must be present when that resource is compiled; see By name linking.

You can use project references to make resources that are stored in a project or library available for use by another project or container. For example, a message flow that is in an application or library might require a message model that is in another library, or an integration project might require an independent resource such as a message set.
Note: The method that is used to create project references in applications and libraries is different from the method that is used to create project references in integration projects. For more information about project references, see Referencing resources in other libraries.