For outbound request processing, an external J2EE client invokes the adapter through the Service Component Architecture (SCA). The client then requests an execution, which in turn is passed from the adapter to the enterprise information system (EIS). With outbound processing, the client can make calls to the adapter to perform specific operations in the EIS file system.
The Adapter for Siebel Business Applications is metadata driven for outbound processing for business objects and business components. The adapter supports hierarchical business objects. The information about the object about to be processed is stored in the application-specific information for the object and each of its attributes.
The adapter supports the Create, Update, Delete, RetrieveAll, Retrieve, Exists, and ApplyChanges operations. The Delete operation is a physical delete. The adapter uses the Retrieve operation for inbound operations to retrieve the objects from the Siebel application. The adapter foundation classes command pattern is used to perform the operations. The execution order name is AFTER_PARENT.
For inbound processing, the adapter models the integration objects as business objects. You select the business service name that processes the required integration object. For example, you select EAI Siebel Adapter if you plan to use an integration object based on a Siebel business object or you select Siebel Account if you plan to use Account Interface as the integration object for your inbound processing.
For outbound processing, the event method is not used and should be left blank when the service type is outbound. This is used by the adapter for inbound processing alone to retrieve the integration object; this should be the business service method name that does the retrieval.
Outbound events allow a client to make calls to the adapter to perform a specific operation in a Siebel business application. The client can request a connection using a connection factory and connection specification that specify the user name and password used for authentication. For service component architecture clients, the functionality of the adapter is exposed through interfaces described by a Web services description language (WSDL). The outbound service description, EISImportBinding, is a service component description language artifact that is produced by the enterprise service discovery wizard. It is an import file. The values required at runtime are present in the import file, which specify the function name, user name, and password required.
The client automatically creates an interaction specification that specifies a function name that is a valid method of the business service. The business service name is in the metadata of the incoming business object.
The mechanisms execute a request using the interaction of the adapter. The adapter uses the input business object to determine the business service and the function name to determine the method to invoke.
The adapter creates a copy of the input business object, which is populated with results, as the output business object. The adapter builds the required Siebel property set based on the input business object and invokes the business service. The Siebel property set output is then populated in the output business object. The output business object is returned to the WebSphere Business Integration record implementation, which is returned to the calling client.