Overview
Communication between the iProcess Engine and external applications is enabled by the iProcess Web Services Plug-in which provides the interface for both inbound and outbound calls. The data is sent using either one of the following data transport mechanisms:
| • | A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) request over the HTTP protocol to the Web Service |
| • | XML text using the JMS Server |
The iProcess Web Services Plug-in is different from other TIBCO plug-ins in several respects:
| • | It runs as a standalone process (unlike for example EAI Java, which is in process with the iProcess Engine background), as well as an iProcess Engine interface. |
| • | It has an Inbound Engine (to handle calls from external Web Services to iProcess operations) and an Outbound Engine (to handle calls to external web services). Both of these engines are hosted by Jetty which is used as a JMX/servlet container. |
The following diagram shows the path for outbound communication in a traditional EAI Plug-in and in the iProcess Web Services Plug-in. The iProcess Web Services Plug-in architecture is discussed in more detail in subsequent sections.
