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Introduction: TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks Services

In TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks, services are responsible for publishing or subscribing to business data in a decoupled yet reliable manner. The business process receives data from a service and routes data to a service. Examples of services are could be a SendPurchaseOrder activity or a RequestShippingInformation activity. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks supports web services for interaction with the Internet and adapter services for interaction with files, databases, or different ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) applications.

Enterprise integration platforms typically use a tightly coupled architecture, where all components of a business process are running on one server. If any component in the system changes, the system no longer works. If the server goes down, all components of the business process stop.

In contrast, a service-centric architecture supports self-contained services. Each service is configured separately and can be deployed on a different machine. If one machine goes down, all other parts of the process can still run. Service descriptions are stored with the TIBCO Administration Server. The business process coordinates the services in the appropriate way. For example, a process could contain a Publish to Adapter activity that accesses an adapter subscriber service.

This loosely-coupled architecture makes it easy to change individual components as needed.

Service Characteristics

The following characteristics are associated with a service:

•	Service interface, for example WSDL/SOAP or AE Services

•	Transport, for example, HTTP, JMS, TIBCO Rendezvous

•	Data syntax, for example, XML or ActiveEnterprise message format

•	Data schema, for example DTD or XSD schema

Invocation Modes

Services can be invoked in several ways.

•	A one-way operation is executed once and does not wait for a response.

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A request-response operation is executed once and waits for one response. In a request-response service, communication flows in both directions. The complete interaction consists of two point-to-point messages—a request and a response. The interaction is only considered complete after the response has arrived.

•	Publication (notification) means an operation sends information on an as-needed basis, potentially multiple times.

•	Subscription means incoming information is processed on an as-needed basis, potentially multiple times.

Publication and subscription are driven by events, usually the arrival or creation of data. Communication is in one direction (publisher to subscribers).

Service Types

TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks includes both web services and adapter services. Web services are accessed by SOAP activities. Adapter services are accessed by activities available in the TIBCO Designer ActiveEnterprise Adapter palette that you can add to your business process.

Web Services

TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks supports Web Services Description Language, or WSDL. WSDL is an XML-formatted language used to describe a Web service's capabilities as collections of communication endpoints capable of exchanging messages.

You can use TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks both to set up a web services server or to set up a web services client. The activities you need are included in the SOAP palette.

Adapter Services

Adapter services allow your business process to publish data or subscribe to data used by the enterprise. A publication service sends data to the business process, a subscription service receives data from the business process.

Adapter services allow you to communicate with enterprise applications or interact with other incoming and outgoing data. They include:

•	Technology adapters— Allow publication to and subscription from files and databases.

•	Enterprise application adapters—Allow you to interact with enterprise applications such as Siebel, SAP R/3, and PeopleSoft.

Adapter Service Configuration Steps

Configuring an adapter service consists of these steps, discussed in this chapter:

•	Step 1: Installing the Adapter

•	Step 2: Setting up the Design-Time Adapter

•	Step 3: Configuring the Run-Time Adapter

•	Step 4: Accessing the Adapter Service From the Process

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