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 > FTP > Overview of IBM WebSphere Adapter for FTP
Technical overview
WebSphere Adapter for FTP provides the means for services running on IBM BPM or WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus to communicate with one or more FTP 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.
The module contains components, which are the actual services, imports and exports. Imports identify services outside of a module, making them callable from within the module. Exports allow components in a module to provide their services to external clients. Imports and exports require binding information, which specifies the means of transporting the data from the modules. The assembly editor in IBM Integration Designer sets up the imports and exports, lists the supported bindings, and simplifies their creation.
- An import is the point at which an SCA module accesses an external service (a service outside the SCA module) as if it were local. An import defines interactions between the SCA module and the service provider. An import has a binding and one or more interfaces.
- An export, also known as an endpoint, is an exposed interface from a Service Component Architecture module that offers a business service to the outside world. An export has a binding that defines how the service can be accessed by service requesters, for example, the service requester may be a Web service.
- Outbound processing
WebSphere Adapter for FTP 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 to perform an operation on the files in the remote file system and returns the result, when applicable, in a business object.- Inbound processing
WebSphere Adapter for FTP supports inbound processing of events. The adapter polls a file system associated with an FTP server for events at specified intervals. Each time a file is created in the event directory, the adapter tracks it as an event. When the adapter detects an event, it requests a copy of the file, converts the file data into a business object, and sends it to the consuming service.- 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. The data can represent either a business entity, such as an invoice or an employee record, or unstructured text.- Resume file transfer
WebSphere Adapter for FTP resumes the transfer of files that were interrupted due to an error in connection to the FTP server. When the connection is reestablished you can resume the transfer of files. The files are transferred from the point at which it was interrupted. This feature is useful when downloading or uploading large files.- WebSphere Application Server environment variables
When you configure the adapter for inbound or outbound processing using the external service wizard, you set values for various required local files and directories. You can later change these values in the deployed application from the IBM BPM administrative console.- External service wizard
The external service wizard in WebSphere Adapter for FTP is used to create services and to generate business objects from the selected objects. The wizard also generates 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.