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Connect for Baan User's Guide
CHAPTER 1
Welcome to the Novell Integration Manager Connect for Baan User's Guide. This Guide is a companion to the Novell Integration Manager User's Guide, which describes how to use all the features of Integration Manager except for the Connect Component Editors. You should be familiar with the Integration Manager User's Guide before using this Guide.
Novell Integration ManagerTM provides separate Component Editors for each Connect, including the Connect for Baan. The special features of each component editor are described in separate Guides, like this one.
If you have been using Integration Manager and are familiar with the core component editor (the XML Map Component Editor), then this Guide should be enough to get you started with the Baan Component Editor.
NOTE: To be successful with this Component Editor, you must be familiar with Baan and basic XML integration concepts.
Novell Integration Manager is an XML integration-broker component. It encompasses a set of design tools for building XML integration applications and Web services, plus a runtime engine that enables execution and administration of the services that you build. The applications and services that you build with Integration Manager can be deployed to any popular J2EE application server or servlet container. Supported application servers include JBoss, IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic in addition to the Novell exteNd application server. Apache Jakarta Tomcat is also supported. Check the Novell Web site for latest platform-support information.
At the core of Integration Manager is a robust XML transformation engine capable of performing a wide range of data transformations, including joining of multiple documents, decomposition of documents, and creation of entirely new documents. The underlying enabling technologies include XSLT, XPath, ECMAScript, and Java. The Integration Manager design environment offers a rich, intuitive graphical user interface, making it possible for you to specify XML transformations and mappings visually, using wizards, dialogs, and drag-and-drop gestures. You never have to write raw XSL or Java code.
Integration Manager supports numerous kinds of data-source connectivity, through individual adapters called Connects. Using the functionality exposed in the various Connects, you can design EAI applications and Web services that pull data in from or push data out to different kinds of back-end systems, using a variety of transport protocols and technologies, ranging from 3270 and 5250 terminal data streams to Telnet, HP3000, Unisys T27 (and UTS), Tandem, and Data General, in addition to HTML screen-scraping, JMS messaging, and CICS RPC transactions. You can also take advantage of JDBC, LDAP, and other mechanisms to reach back-end data repositories and systems that might or might not natively understand XML. Integration Manager Connects allow you to connect to these systems inobtrusively, so as to marshall non-XML data into XML form or vice versa without any need to modify host-system setups or code.
In addition to legacy data-stream and protocol-specific Connects, Integration Manager has Connects for ERP and CRM systems, including PeopleSoft, SAP, Lawson, Oracle E-Business Suite, J.D. Edwards, and Siebel. As with other Connect solutions, the ERP and CRM Connects are fully integrated into Integration Manager's design-time environment so that you can use intuitive visual tools to create powerful custom integration solutions, eliminating the need to write Java code or edit raw XML or schemas by hand. You can also test the components that you build against live Baan connections, using the animation facility (step-through debugger) of the design environment. As part of the design and debug process, your Oracle-aware components can call other Integration Manager Components (such as XML Map Components, JDBC Components, etc.) and make use of any of the core actions that Integration Manager defines (such as Map, Function, Log, and other actions).
The Novell Integration Manager Connect for Baan allows you to build powerful XML-based integration solutions and enables you to reuse your existing Baan business functions with other applications—the key to building a successful e-business or integrated enterprise. The Integration Manager Connect enables you to incorporate Baan business objects and services into new application initiatives.
You do not need to manually generate or install Baan XML schemas in order to use the Integration Manager Connect for Baan. The Connect will generate schemas for you, as needed, automatically.
You also don't have to take any steps to preinstall RARs (resource adapter archives, defined by the Java Connector Architecture) on the target application server ahead of time. Integration Manager handles RAR deployment for you automatically when you deploy any Integration Manager-built service that utilizes the Integration Manager Connect for Baan.
NOTE: Some one-time setup and configuration steps are required in order to use the Integration Manager Connect for Baan. These steps are described in Getting Started With the Integration Manager Connect for Baan.
The J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) defines a standard architecture for connecting elements of the J2EE platform to a heterogeneous Enterprise Information System (EIS). Examples of EIS components include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), mainframe transaction processing, database systems, and legacy applications that are not written in the Java programming language. By defining a common set of scalable, secure, transactional mechanisms reachable via a standard set of APIs, J2EE Connector Architecture enables the integration of an EIS with an application server and enterprise applications.
The J2EE Connector Architecture permits an EIS vendor to provide a standard resource adapter for its EIS. The resource adapter plugs into an application server, providing connectivity to an EIS, and integrating it with the rest of the enterprise. If an application server vendor has extended its system to support J2EE Connector Architecture, it is assured of seamless connectivity to multiple Enterprise Information Systems.
Before J2EE Connector Architecture, most EIS vendors offered vendor-specific architectures to provide connectivity between applications and their software. Each program interacting with an EIS needed to be hand-tooled by someone with a detailed knowledge of the target EIS. Custom software to provide connectivity across multiple systems was time consuming to develop, debug, and maintain.
By providing a standard set of APIs and contracts for managing connectivity, exposing EIS APIs, and using application-server services (like transaction control and connection pooling), J2EE Connector Architecture greatly reduces the need for custom programming. Developers can focus on business logic rather than connectivity and transaction-related logic and a variety of "plumbing issues."
The "major participants" in J2EE Connector Architecture include these components:
The application server is not strictly required. Certain services like connection pooling and transaction control will not be available in a "server" that is just a servlet container. But J2EE Connector Architecture resource adapters can still operate.
The RAR represents the interests of the underlying EIS.
The application interacts with the resource adapter using what J2EE Connector Architecture calls standard contracts. Standard contracts define what interactions are to take place and how they are exposed. The contract between the application and the resource adapter is called the Common Client Interface (CCI). The resource adapter, in turn, interacts with the application server under the Service Provider Interface (SPI), which defines how the management of resource adapter interactions occurs. The aspects of this include:
Event listening (listeners can receive notification of significant events; for example, a connection failure)
In the normal course of events, the application uses a naming service to locate the appropriate resource adapter. The application server supplies the naming service, and so it recognizes that a request is being made to locate a resource adapter. In such a case, the application server interposes a resource-adapter-supplied intermediate object that interacts between the resource adapter and the application server. Through this intermediating object, the application server manages the items within the SPI contract below the awareness of the application.
For more information about J2EE Connector Architecture, visit http://java.sun.com/j2ee/connector/.
Novell Integration Manager uses licensed J2EE Connector Architecture adapter technology from iWay Software* (a division of Information Builders, Inc.) to mediate EIS interactions in the Integration Manager Connect for Baan. A leader in the J2EE Connector Architecture technology space, iWay Software provides resource adapters and connectivity solutions across a wide array of EIS and other systems.
For more information about iWay, see http://www.iwaysoftware.com.
With Integration Manager Connect for Baan, you can build any kind of Web service or integration application that needs to push data into or pull data from a Baan-based data store using XML as the interchange format. Your integration application can be deployed to a J2EE application server and run as a public web service, or it can be used in "behind the firewall" scenarios. It can be triggered by a servlet, JSP, EJB, e-mail, timer, file arrival, JMS message arrival, or any of the supported Integration Manager trigger types. It can also run standalone or as part of a workflow built using the Integration Manager Process Manager. (For more information about deployment options, see "Deploying Your Project," in the Novell Integration Manager User's Guide.)
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