This topic applies only to the IBM Business Process Manager Advanced configuration.

Asynchronous invocation qualifier

The asynchronous invocation qualifier allows you to specify that an asynchronous invocation should occur as part of a client transaction. The qualifier determines when the message is sent to the target.

A synchronous call ties up a thread until it is complete. An asynchronous invocation causes a message to be added to a message queue; then, the client proceeds with its own processing without waiting for a reply to its message.

Location: Asynchronous invocation is set on a reference.

Settings: The asynchronous invocation qualifier can have these settings:

Commit - The message is only sent if the transaction is committed. Asynchronous invocations using the reference will be transacted as a part of any client global transaction or extended local transaction (that is, where the transaction Value qualifier for the client implementation is local).
Call (default) - Asynchronous invocations using the reference occur immediately. This is logically equivalent to suspending the current transaction and then invoking the target service.

See the discussion of when to use Commit and Call in the section about asynchronous innovation in Quality of service: Qualifiers for business services.

Programming notes

The system ignores the join transaction setting when a service is invoked asynchronously.

If you use this qualifier on the reference of a Java component and if the Java implementation makes asynchronous calls with a deferred response, this qualifier must have the value "call". If the value is set to "commit", the Java implementation waits for a response to a message that has not yet been sent.