Connecting to an EIS by using the Adapter Connection wizard

Use the Adapter Connection wizard to create the resources that enable the WebSphere® Adapters to connect to an Enterprise Information System (EIS).

Before you begin

About this task

A message flow that uses one of the WebSphere Adapters requires the following resources:
  • One or more message flows that contain one or more WebSphere Adapters nodes
  • An XML Schema Definition (XSD) for each business object in the Enterprise Information System (EIS)
  • An adapter component file for the WebSphere Adapter that is being used
  • A library or application to contain these resources
The Adapter Connection wizard creates these resources automatically.

You can take an adapter component that was created by using the Adapter Connection wizard, and update it with newly discovered objects from the EIS by running the Adapter Connection - Iterative Discovery wizard. This facility is known as iterative discovery. You can either add the new objects without modifying existing objects, or replace existing objects. For more information, see Enhancing existing adapters with newly discovered objects.

The following steps describe how to connect to an EIS.

Procedure

  1. Click File > New > Adapter Connection.
    Alternatively, click Quick Starts, then click Start from adapter connection.
    The Adapter Connection wizard opens.
  2. Follow the instructions in the wizard. To see a description of each field within the wizard, hold the mouse pointer over the field.

    Ensure that inbound and outbound SAP IDocs have different names if they are stored in the same library. For more information, see An error is issued when you use the message set that is generated by the Adapter Connection wizard.

    When you have completed the steps in the wizard, the specified library contains a message type for each business object that is to be used.

    When the Adapter Connection wizard completes, the IBM® Integration Toolkit displays a message that prompts you to drag the adapter component onto the message flow canvas.

  3. Ensure that a message flow is open in the Message Flow editor so that the message flow canvas is available.
  4. In the Application Development view, expand the folders beneath the library until you see the adapter component, which has a suffix of inadapter or outadapter.
  5. Drag the adapter component onto the message flow canvas.
    The component appears as a message flow node.
  6. Configure the node, as described in Configuring a message flow node.
  7. When you have developed and saved your message flow, deploy it by following the instructions in WebSphere Adapters resources.

What to do next

Using configurable services for WebSphere Adapters nodes

WebSphere Adapters nodes can get connection details from either the adapter component or a configurable service. By using configurable services, you can change the connection details for adapters without the need to redeploy the adapters. For more details about creating, changing, reporting, and deleting the configurable services for each EIS, see the appropriate topic: