Employing JBoss SOA Platform to Integrate Oracle BRM with Third Party Systems

admin — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:49:03 +0000

To continue the story about the notification events integration of Oracle BRM, we will present the integration of Oracle BRM with the JBoss 5.0.2GA Enterprise SOA Platform, which is being used as middleware in a mid-sized mobile operator company. Prior to this notification events integration, we had also used JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform to integrate Oracle BRM with some other third party systems (ERP, CRM, WEB and WAP portal, USSD…,) so it was a logical step to implement this notification event integration in the same way.

As mentioned in the previous article, Oracle BRM is capable of publishing events in the database, through http requests or in some other way, by implementing custom connectors. After some investigation and prototyping, we decided that an http requests approach would be the most suitable in our case. We dismissed a database approach because of the very frequent requests to the DB (it was requested that some specific notification events be provided to third party systems in a matter of seconds.) So, we used the ESB functionality of JBoss and exposed the http interface through an http_gateway.
This configuration allows us to handle a huge number of notification events without any performance dropdowns on the Oracle BRM side. All notification events are stored in a queue through the http_gateway and then handled appropriately using a rule engine. With defining rules in the rule engine, events are properly categorized and sent to specified services for further processing and further third party notifying.

One quite complex task was configuring rules for proper event handling. Our approach was to uniquely create messages according to event types, system ids, and other specific parameters. In this way, we were able to define priorities and specific routes for the messages. Also, we had to use several channels for sending notification events to third party systems. As is the case in many other companies, this mobile operator utilizes some legacy systems which do not have interfaces used in most modern systems. Notification events for those legacy systems are routed to special services, which communicate with them in specified way. For other systems, (SMS Gateway, CRM, ERP, WEB and WAP portal…) we used standard communication methods, such as web services and http interfaces.

In the current configuration, we are able to handle several hundred events per second from Oracle BRM to JBoss middleware. However, because all unwanted events have already been removed by the Oracle BRM Payload Generator EM, up to now there have been no such high loads on the production systems. On the other hand, we have noticed performance issues when communicating with some of the third party systems. For example, ERP is very problematic during the processing of payments, and, during this time, there should be no interference from other systems. So, for handling such bottlenecks, we are also using queues for outbound messages. All messages for those systems are put in a queue and sent out at an appropriate rate (in some cases, only one message every 5 seconds).

Such a design allows us to add new notification events or to extend notification event service to another third party system with a very limited number of changes and without affecting currently running services. In most cases, it requires only changes in the configuration files. For example, sending an additional notification event would require a change in the Oracle BRM payloadconfig.xml file and adding a rule for routing this new message in the JBoss Rule engine.

With the successful implementation of this solution in a production environment, we have proved that the integration of Oracle BRM with third party systems is very efficient and reliable, using Oracle BRM EAI on the billing side and Red Hat JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform with ESB on the middleware side.

SOA Development for Small Companies

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:24:43 +0000

Most small companies are not interested in SOA. The main reason for this is that upper management is frightened of what they think will be the huge expenses connected with the development of SOA. But, as ever, technology has been changing. Now, in fact, SOA can be very beneficial for even small business since SOA development and integration now can be implemented at a much lower cost than before.

But to gain SOA benefits, several procedures must be followed. Before starting an SOA project, which business process will be implemented should first be defined. For the first project, the process chosen should be something simple and not business critical. In that way, positive results will quickly be apparent, and in case of failure, none of the business critical processes will be affected.

Before each SOA project is started, a good road map with defined milestones needs to be created. The milestones should be relatively close together so development progress can be actively controlled. Because a good road map cannot be drawn without at least a basic design of the new SOA system, it is recommended that expert SOA consultants are included at this stage. This will be very beneficial in the latter stages of the project because those milestones will already be well-defined, and the SOA development team will be able to deliver on time.

Of course, in SOA projects for small companies, system architecture is also crucial for the successful implementation of SOA. However, costs can be much lower than for huge SOA projects. A small company’s business organization is much simpler, so such implementation can start with integration of only a small part of business processes, a lot of work can be done by an internal IT team, if available, and progress can proceed in small steps. But still, the main roles (i.e. business analyst and SOA architect) should be filled by specialists from SOA development companies. For those key tasks, experience is very important, and many SOA consulting and development companies can offer that.

The next step is the development of the SOA services needed for integrating business processes. To lower costs, many free tools can be used: servers, IDEs, ESBs, and BPEL processing tools. Development with these free tools can be as rapid and successful as with other, payable solutions. But the key element is a well-integrated team. The best results can be achieved with a team associated with the inside developer working with an outside SOA developer expert from an SOA consulting company.

Developing SOA projects and integrating a company’s business systems in that way will produce very rapid and beneficial results for whole company; however, the costs will remain quite low and will be returned in a very short time.

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Employing JBoss SOA Platform to Integrate Oracle BRM with Third Party Systems

SOA Development for Small Companies