Re: (forte-users) Minimal Fusion

Question

Thomas,
A response which may contain no answers...and may lead to more questions...
As a novice fusion user, one of the largest obstacles to using Fusion is the lack of XML API's in an application, be it a customer's in-house or vendor's software product. Corresponding to this is simply the lack of any API's in the application. As Forte (abet Sun, now iPlanet) says in their training manual 'A nontrivial task is to build new adapters for your programs if you wish to enable them to interact using XML documents over HTTP'. This is probably an understatement.
The question that come to mind is:
Does the warehouse have published API's their product?
If not, then, IMHO, you have steep hill to climb, not the least being communication, cooperation, and coordination from the warehouse vendor (another one of those 'nontrivial tasks') in trying to create the required API's
if so, then it is a matter of building an adapter, in a language that is compatible with the warehouse's API (hopefully C or some derivation of) , that contains (1) a DOM (Document Object Module) to API Translator, (2) an XML Parser (converts XML to DOM and visa-versa) , and (3) a HTTP server (again, another one of those 'nontrivial tasks').
Forte (abet Sun, now iPlanet) suggests, and I would concur (with reservations), that if you haven't done this before you should probably hire their services from the Forte Integration Services group. Their costs (admittible high) should be offset be the time it would take to develop one on your own. A side benefit is working with them, you learn the process for making other adapters in the future. If Fusion is a marketing success, then the benefits should out weigh the costs.
The Forte Integration Services group markets, or will market, a Fusion Adapter Designer, some sort of a SDK, which assists in the creation of Adapters. I do not know the availability of that product at this time.
As to your question "Is it reasonable to consider doing this project under Fusion as a
getting-feet-wet experience?" If you (or your customer) can afford the costs, and the warehouse has published API's, I would say that you gotta get-your-feet-wet somehow. If the warehouse doesn't have published API's and are not willing to put forth the effort and resources to do so, I would say your chances of success are considerably less.
In any case, IMHO, it will be a 'non trivial' undertaking.
-later
-labeaux
"Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D." <thomascintegrity.com> 10/31/00 04:49PM >>>This may be one of those questions which has no answer, but ...
Our long term plan is to develop XML APIs to each of the modules in our
suite of non-Forte applications and to integrate these under Fusion, thus
gaining Conductor management of the inter-module work flows and a cleaner
loose coupling of the applications along with other benefits such as the
ease of integration with other packages, a clean way to migrate to Forte
modules, and an ease of interconnecting "mini-applications" to address
specific customer needs.
I have an existing customer who has made a decision to migrate to a third
party warehouse from an in-house warehouse. I.e., were this transition to
the new structure complete, this would correspond to unhooking some of our
modules and replacing these with an adapter to the corresponding modules in
the third party warehouse.
In fact, as it looks now, I will need to build the logical equivalent of
these APIs anyway -- might as well do it in XML, right? And these APIs
will communicate with a daemon responsible for the message traffic to and
from. I tried to get this traffic to be XML and to use MQSeries or JMS as
the transport, but the folks at the warehouse end don't seem to be able to
handle such things, so I am stuck doing something fairly stupid for the
actual communication.
So, the question for those out there who have already paid their Fusion
dues, is it reasonable to consider doing this project under Fusion as a
getting-feet-wet experience. There are only half a dozen APIs to do and I
have to do those anyway and am inclined to make them XML regardless. There
will be one communication daemon to which all these connect and the
business processes originally implemented in Conductor will basically be
just point to point connects, except for routing traffic from the daemon to
the right API based on message type. That's really all I need it to do,
i.e., far too simple to actually need Fusion, but a possible opportunity
to get started and then to expand to other uses.
Crazy?
=========================================================================
Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D email: thomascintegrity.com
Computing Integrity, Inc. sales: 510-233-9329
550 Casey Drive - Cypress Point support: 510-233-9327
Point Richmond, CA 94801-3751 fax: [phone]
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Answer 1

At 07:55 AM 11/1/00, Labeaux Schiek wrote:
As a novice fusion user, one of the largest obstacles to using Fusion is
the lack of XML API's in an application, be it a customer's in-house or
vendor's software product.In this case, the good news is that one of the applications in question is
our own, so whipping up an XML API to suit each required transaction on
that side is no more, probably less, work than importing or exporting a
flat file or whatever. Moreover, my current expectation of how this
interaction will work is something like this:
</pre>
---Fusion------
| |
WACS<-->WACS_Daemon<----VPN socket
connection---->IS_Daemon I/S
</pre>
I.e., I/S, our application, and the IS_Daemon which handles the connection
traffic across the internet link are both mine. For I/S, I will create XML
APIs to suit. For the IS_daemon, I might use the transform facilities to
convert this XML to the pipe-delimited format they are expected at the
other end and make the daemon a simple manager of the connection or, the
daemon could do the conversion, but the former seems like the more
appropriate approach. The API between the two daemons is something we are
defining now (unfortunately I lost the argument to make that XML).
Corresponding to this is simply the lack of any API's in the
application. As Forte (abet Sun, now iPlanet) says in their training
manual 'A nontrivial task is to build new adapters for your programs if
you wish to enable them to interact using XML documents over HTTP'.My neophyte understanding is that, since I am defining the API to I/S in
the diagram above and I can make this XML, then the adapter issue
disappears there. I might have to create an adapter for the daemon, but if
necessary, I could make that the same XML on a pass through and do the
translation in the daemon.
If not, then, IMHO, you have steep hill to climb, not the least being
communication, cooperation, and coordination from the warehouse vendor
(another one of those 'nontrivial tasks') in trying to create the required
API'sWe are well through this process anyway. ... which is not to say that it
has been or will be easy, but it must be done whether I use Fusion or
not. Given that the vote has gone in favor of simple messages of
pipe-delimited records, i.e., basically flat file, the technical issues
there are minimal.
if so, then it is a matter of building an adapter, in a language that is
compatible with the warehouse's API (hopefully C or some derivation of) ,
that contains (1) a DOM (Document Object Module) to API Translator, (2)
an XML Parser (converts XML to DOM and visa-versa) , and (3) a HTTP server
(again, another one of those 'nontrivial tasks').I'm not sure I quite understand what you are saying here. The HTTP part
won't be there since we will apparently be connecting via a VPN sockets
connection. But, how are you distinguishing DOM and XML since DOM is a
particular form of XML? The XML API I build for I/S will be DOM compliant.
Forte (abet Sun, now iPlanet) suggests, and I would concur (with
reservations), that if you haven't done this before you should probably
hire their services from the Forte Integration Services group. Their
costs (admittible high) should be offset be the time it would take to
develop one on your own. A side benefit is working with them, you learn
the process for making other adapters in the future. If Fusion is a
marketing success, then the benefits should out weigh the costs.I am familiar with the "party" line. If I were building a complete
interface to another major product (I/S is roughly equivalent to JDEC in
coverage) in the context of an EAI project, I would happily invite them in
and hope to pick up pointers. Here, though, there are only 8 or 9 total
transaction types and either all of the interfaces are XML, i.e., no
adapter required as I understand it, or only the daemon will need an
adapter and that will be a choice I can make depending on how things
go. One does wish it were possible to sample a small piece of that
knowledge store without having to buy the whole thing, though.
The Forte Integration Services group markets, or will market, a Fusion
Adapter Designer, some sort of a SDK, which assists in the creation of
Adapters. I do not know the availability of that product at this time.Last I checked, one couldn't get this without the consulting ... hence the
last sentence above.
Thanks for your input.
=========================================================================
Thomas Mercer-Hursh, Ph.D email: thomascintegrity.com
Computing Integrity, Inc. sales: 510-233-9329
550 Casey Drive - Cypress Point support: 510-233-9327
Point Richmond, CA 94801-3751 fax: [phone]