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 > Oracle E-Business Suite > Overview of IBM WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite
Technical overview of IBM WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite
The adapter supports integration of databases that are accessible through the JDBC application programming interface (API) with applications running on IBM BPM or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus. The adapter provides outbound and inbound processing under the Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (JEE) Connector Architecture (JCA) and integrates with Service Component Architecture components.
Outbound processing enables an application to access or modify data in a database. The adapter converts a request from the application to an outbound operation, which it runs to create, retrieve, update, or delete data in the database or to run a database program stored in the database. Processing these requests results in the creation, retrieval, update, or deletion of rows in the corresponding database tables. The adapter also enables you to run stored procedures or stored functions that are defined in the database, and to run user-defined SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. You can use the adapter to integrate multiple applications with the same database.
Figure 1 presents an overview of the flow of outbound processing.
An application running on IBM BPM or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus starts a service in an outbound module, which sends a request to the adapter to process one or more business objects. The adapter uses the JDBC API to connect to the database server, which accesses the tables and other objects in the database.
Figure 1. Processing outbound requests
Inbound processing enables an application to receive notification when objects in the database are changed.
For example, an application can be notified when rows are created, updated, or deleted in selected database tables.
Figure 2 presents an overview of the flow of inbound processing.
A database application changes tables in the database. The change causes a trigger, or another automated mechanism, to update the event store with information about the change. Periodically, the adapter polls the event store, retrieves, and processes events, and then delivers them to the export of a module that is part of an application that runs in IBM BPM or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus.
Figure 2. Processing inbound events
The adapter can process events in one of the following ways:
- Standard event processing, using an event store that is populated by the database application
- Custom event processing, using a user-defined database query
During standard event processing, when data is changed in the tables in the database, appropriate events are inserted into a database table called an event store, along with relevant information, such as key values. To capture the changed data in the database, you can place triggers on the respective tables, or use other methods such as Oracle Change Data Capture, which is provided for Oracle databases. To capture the changed data in Oracle E-Business Suite, configure the Oracle Business Event system and Concurrent Program. The adapter polls the event store and retrieves a batch of events. The events can be filtered by business object type and time stamp and connector ID. The adapter uses each event to construct a business graph or business object that contains the business objects changed by that event. The business object or business graph is then dispatched to the exports that are configured to receive the specific business object.
During custom event processing, the adapter runs a query that was specified by the user as a standard SQL statement, a stored procedure, or a stored function. Any of these actions returns a result set for data returned by the query. Each row of the result set corresponds to a row in the event store. The adapter constructs a business object for each event and delivers it to the exports (also called endpoints) that are configured for (or have subscribed to) the specific business object.
For both standard and custom event processing, you can specify how often the adapter polls for events and how many events it retrieves each polling period.
- Outbound processing
When an application component needs to query the existence of a record in the database or retrieve or modify data in the underlying Oracle database, the adapter acts as the connector between the application component and the database. The adapter provides a set of standard outbound operations, which process either the after-image or delta style business objects. The adapter also supports both local and XA (distributed) transactions for outbound processing.- Inbound processing
IBM WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite supports inbound event management with event delivery. Events are processed from an event store that is populated either by the database application or from the result of custom queries that you provide. You control how often the adapter polls for events and how many records are delivered to the export at one time.- Business objects
A business object is a structure that consists of data, the action to be performed on the data, and additional instructions, if any, for processing the data. WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite uses business objects to represent tables and views in the database along with the results of database queries, stored procedures, and stored functions. Business objects can also create a hierarchy of objects from your database and group unrelated tables. Your component communicates with the adapter using business objects.- Tables, views, and synonyms overview
The Oracle database provides the common database objects such as tables, views, synonyms.- Stored procedure overview
A stored procedure can be a business object that your module runs with the Execute operation. It can run in place of the standard SQL for an operation on any business object, or it can perform additional actions before or after performing an operation.- Stored procedure business object overview
You can create a stored procedure business object that corresponds to a stored procedure or stored function in the database.
You can then use the Execute operation to run the stored procedure against the data in the database.
- Stored procedures used in place of or in addition to operations
You can specify that the adapter use a stored procedure in the database in place of, before, or after the SQL statements that the adapter uses to perform an operation. Each business object can have a different set of stored procedures used with each operation.
- Stored functions overview
The Oracle database supports stored functions in addition to stored procedures. Stored functions are like stored procedures except that they always return a value. The adapter supports them in a similar manner.- Query business object overview
Query business objects run a user-defined SELECT statement against the database and return the matching records in business objects.- 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.- XML gateway interface overview
XML Gateway is an interface type in Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Repository. It allows outbound integration with Oracle E-Business Suite; helps in transferring data to the application. The interface exposes the XML documents in the specified format that is widely used by the Oracle applications business objects and interfaces. It interacts with the Oracle interface tables and views, and it maps the underlying tables to XML format. The interface services contain a common standards-based approach for XML integration between Oracle E-Business Suite and other third-party applications (for example, Enterprise Application Integration and Web Service Integration).- Advanced Queue integration overview
Advanced Queue is an interface type in Oracle E-Business Suite. It allows outbound integration with Oracle E-Business Suite and helps in transferring data to the application. It also interacts with the Oracle advanced queue. The interface services contain a common standard-based approach for integration between Oracle E-Business Suite and other third-party applications (Example: Enterprise Application Integration).- Support for metadata discovery for the supported interfaces
WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a complete catalog of Oracle E-Business Suite business service interfaces, which can be started to get the structure and metadata of different business service interfaces.- The external service wizard
Use the external service wizard in IBM Integration Designer to discover objects in the Oracle database of Oracle E-Business Suite, to generate query business objects, and to generate business objects from selected database objects. The wizard also generates the module and the service artifacts that enable the adapter to run as a Service Component Architecture component.- Log and Trace Analyzer
The adapter creates log and trace files that can be viewed with the Log and Trace Analyzer.
Overview of IBM WebSphere Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite