IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Services and service-related functions > Access external services with adapters > Configure and using adapters > IBM WebSphere Adapters > Lotus Domino > Overview of WebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino
Technical overview of WebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino
The adapter supports bidirectional exchange of business data between business applications and the Lotus Domino server. The adapter provides outbound and inbound processing under the Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (JEE) Connector Architecture (JCA) and integrates with Service Component Architecture components.
The adapter provides the means for services running on IBM Integration Designer to exchange documents with one or more Domino servers. The services are contained in a module, which consists of both a project in IBM Integration Designer and a unit of deployment to IBM BPM. The module is packaged and deployed to IBM BPM as an enterprise archive (EAR) file.
Overview of the Domino productsThe important constituents of the Lotus Domino suite of products are:
- Lotus Domino server: The Lotus Domino server provides a document database, a collaboration application server, and a mail server.
- Lotus Domino Administrator client: It is the administration tool of the Lotus Domino server.
- Lotus Domino Designer client: It is used for designing Lotus Domino applications.
Lotus Domino server metadataWebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino interacts with the Lotus Domino server using the metadata constituents.
- Database: The Lotus Domino server provides the built-in “NSF” format database, which contains all documents, forms, and scripts.
- Document: A document contains data in its various fields. There can be several types of documents in a database.
- Form: A form defines the structure of a document; the types of fields that a document contains. The business object structure in the adapter corresponds to a form in the Domino database.
- Item: The field in a document is called an item. The item has an item name, an item type, and one or multiple item values associated with it. A field in the business object is mapped to an item in the document. When the item is allowed to have multiple values, the mapped field in the business object is an array.
- Outbound processing
WebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino supports outbound request processing. When the adapter receives a request, which is sent in the form of a business object from the module, it processes the request and returns the result as a business object. The adapter provides a standard set of outbound operations.- Inbound processing
WebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino supports inbound processing of events. The adapter polls the event database in the Lotus Domino server for events at specified intervals. Each time a form is created or updated, the adapter tracks the process as an event. When the adapter detects an event, it requests a copy of the form, converts the form data into a business object, and sends it to the consuming service.- Business object structures
A business object is a structure that consists of data and additional instructions, if any, for processing the data. The adapter supports the form-based business object structure. A form-based type is a content-specific business object that supports specific business object structures (such as, create and retrieve business objects).- External software dependencies
The adapter needs to have some dependency files to communicate with the Lotus Domino server.- The external service wizard
The external service wizard in WebSphere Adapter for Lotus Domino is used to create services and to generate business objects from the selected objects. The wizard also generates the module and the service artifacts that enable the adapter to run as a Service Component Architecture (SCA) component.- Log and Trace Analyzer
The adapter creates log and trace files that can be viewed with the Log and Trace Analyzer.- Business faults
The adapter supports business faults, which are exceptions that are anticipated and declared in the outbound service description, or import. Business faults occur at predictable points in a business process, and are caused by a business rule violation or a constraint violation.- WebSphere Application Server environment variables
WebSphere Application Server environment variables can be used in the external service wizard to specify directory values. You can now change any string property values in inbound and outbound configuration by only changing the environment variables.