IBM Control Desk, Version 7.6.0

Web Services

The Maximo Integration Framework allows the synchronization and integration of data and applications between Control Desk and external systems by using web services.

There are changes in how web services are deployed in Control Desk version 7.6. Despite these changes, Control Desk version 7.5.x web services that are run in Control Desk version 7.6 with no impact to existing SOAP clients.

Previous versions of Control Desk support both the AXIS2 and JAX-WS Java web services APIs. Control Desk version 7.6 supports the JAX-WS API only. When you upgrade to Control Desk version 7.6, your existing web services are converted to use JAX-WS-based deployment.

Web service deployment containers

Deployment of web services to the product container is a deployment where the web service is immediately available once the service is deployed from the Web Services Library application. A technical change has been implemented to move off of the web service deployment using the Axis API. The product container now uses JAX-WS for deployment. Functionally, the service is still available upon deployment. This web service deployment option is dependent upon running with WebSphere® Application Server version 8.5.5.3 or higher.

During the upgrade, registration of web services that are deployed to the product container are updated with a new JAX-WS implementation class file and the Axis implementation class is removed.

In a new installations of Control Desk version 7.6, the default value for the mxe.int.containerdeploy system property is set to a value of 0 (false). This indicates the product container uses the default deployment model.

Web Service Error Propagation

By default, when a client invokes a Control Desk web service and encounters a business logic error such as Invalid Site, the Control Desk error message does not propagate back to the client. The client receives an exception but the exception does not include the details of the Control Desk error. If you would prefer to receive the Control Desk error text in the web service response you need to add the webservices.unify.faults property through the WebSphere Application Server Admin Console.
  1. Log in to the WebSphere Application Server Admin Console and navigate to Servers > Server Types > Websphere application servers.
  2. Select the server name.
  3. From the server infrastructure section, select Java and Process Management.
  4. Select Process definition.
  5. Within the Additional properties section, select Java virtual machine and then Custom properties.
  6. Create the webservices.unify.faults property.
    1. Click New.
    2. Set the name to webservices.unify.faults.
    3. Set the value to false. This enables the error text to be propogated from the error condition the integration encountered.
  7. Save your changes.

Web service end-point handlers

In the End Point application, pre-defined web service end points are not provided. However, two predefined end-point handlers, WEBSERVICE and WEBSERVICE-JAXWS are supplied. The WEBSERVICE handler now uses JAX-WS rather than AXIS. This is an internal change that should not impact the use of these handlers in existing deployments.

For Control Desk version 7.6 and beyond, use the WEBSERVICE-JAXWS handler which will include future enhancements. The WEBSERVICE handler continues to be supported for existing deployments and integration implementations, but will not be enhanced in the future.

A new property, HTTPHEADERS, has been added to the WEBSERVICE-JAXWS handler. This optional property supports the addition of HTTP HEADERS into an integration transaction. Values for the header can be hard coded in a comma-separated list, for example, Headername1:Headervalue1, Headername2:Headervalue2. If no value is provided, only the Header name is supplied in the property. Custom code of an invocation channel can inject values into the transaction context.

This same property feature, using the name HEADERS, has been added to the HTTP handler as well.

SOAP version

For Control Desk version 7.6, service deployment supports either SOAP 1.1 or 1.2. All services are deployed using a single version (not a mix). The SOAP version is configured in the system property, mxe.int.soapversion. Valid values are SOAP11 or SOAP12.

Parent topic: Maximo Integration Framework upgrade

Feedback