Getting Started with Advanced Registration Flows

This section will help you to quickly get started using the Advanced Registration Flow feature using the bundled ALPBM Web Service endpoint that is configured to work with the ALBPM Process Engine. However, this feature is highly extensible and can be tailored to suit your environment.

Steps to Configure the ALER Event Manager

The Event Manager is a component embedded within ALER that manages event subscriptions, event persistence, event filtering, and event delivery. Web Service endpoints can subscribe to the Event Manager's Subscription Manager and the asset registration events that are generated within ALER are delivered to the Web Service endpoints.

The Event Manager uses an embedded version of Apache ActiveMQ JMS Server that is enabled by default. The embedded JMS server is configured to run out-of-the-box without any additional configuration. However, you can also configure the Event Manager to use an external Java-based message broker, such as Weblogic Server JMS or IBM MQSeries.

Use Cases

Configuring the Event Manager

The Event Manager needs to be enabled in ALER to allow the Event Manager to send events to external Web Service endpoints. You can either:

Enable the cmee.eventframework.enabled=true property in the eventing.properties file in the <ALER Domain>\WEB-INF\classes directory.

This property can also be enabled using the ALER Web-based console's System Settings, as explained in Configuring the Event Manager's System Settings.

The default Eventing cmee.eventframework.delivery.sleep and cmee.eventframework.store.sleep property values can also be tuned to control the overall performance of ALER and the Web Service endpoints. These properties directly impact the number of events that get triggered per second by the Event Manager. For example, If a faster response is required for testing purposes, the default cmee.eventframework.store.sleep value of 7200 seconds should be changed to a reasonable testing amount.
The Event Manager uses the same logging framework as ALER. By default, logging is enabled to go to a file, but you direct the debug statements to go to the console by appending the following categories to the log4fl.properties file in the <ALER Domain>\WEB-INF\classes directory.

# eventing subsystem
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.core= debug,eventingLog,stdout
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.dm= debug,eventingLog,stdout
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.facade= debug,eventingLog,stdout
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.notifier= debug,eventingLog,stdout
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.store= debug,eventingLog,stdout
log4j.category.com.bea.infra.event.sub= debug,eventingLog,stdout

Configure the Web Service subscriptions with the Event Manager's Subscription Manager.

Note:

By default the Subscription Manager is configured to work out-of-the-box with the ALBPM Process Engine if the ALBPM Process Engine is running on the same machine as ALER. You can skip this step if this is the case because the default settings are ready to run.

As shown below, the following information may need to be changed within the EndPointEventSubscription.xml file under <ALER Domain>\WEB-INF\classes directory, depending on the requirement:

Host - If the Web Service Endpoint is running in a host other than ALER. If it'' the same host, leave the default unchanged
Port - Specify the port of the Web Service Endpoint. If ALBPM is used as the Process Engine, leave the default unchanged.
URI - Specify the URI of the Web Service. If ALBPM is used as the Process Engine, leave the default unchanged.
Operation Name - If ALBPM is used as the Process Engine, leave the default unchanged. Please refer to the WSDL within the eventNotifier.jar located in <aler Webapp path>/WEB-INF/lib for the available operations.
User Name/Password - Used only if ALBPM is used as the Process Engine. Default user name and password are "admin" and "admin".
Expression - Default is empty, which means all the events are delivered.

Restart ALER for the configuration changes to take effect.

Triggering an Asset Event

Follow these steps to make sure that events are triggered after the configuring the Event Manager.

Launch the ALER Asset Editor from the Web-based console.

For information on using the ALER Asset Editor, refer to the ALER Registrar Guide.

Create a new asset, as shown here.

Figure 2-2 ALER Asset Editor - Create New Asset

ALER Asset Editor - Create New Asset

Note:

The Asset Type should be Service.

Click OK to submit the asset.
After the asset is submitted, switch to the ALER console to verify the following logging statements printed to the console.

Figure 2-3 Event Monitoring Console

Event Monitoring Console

The Event Monitoring tool can be used to view the payload of the event that will be delivered. For more information about monitoring events, see Monitoring Events.

Steps to Configure and Run the ALBPM Process Engine

After the Event Manager is ready to send events, the ALBPM Process Engine needs to be configured and be ready to process the events. When ALER is installed, it provides an option to install and configure the Process Engine. This section assumes that the Process Engine was successfully installed before following these steps.

To launch the ALBPM Admin Center, double-click the albpmadmcenter.exe file in the <ALBPM Enterprise Home>\bin directory.

Use Cases

ALER features pre-bundled Advanced Registration Flows that are deployed to the Process Engine. When events are triggered within ALER, they are delivered to the Process Engine and execute the Advanced Registration Flows that attempt to automate ALER processes, such as asset submission, acceptance, registration, and other governance process.

Configuring the Advanced Registration Flows to Process a Submission Event

Generate the Workflow Configuration (workflow.xml) file using the Generate Workflow Config tool (config_gen.bat). This tool connects to ALER and creates a bootstrapping file that can be customized. For more information about generating the workflow.xml file, see Generating the Workflow Config File.
Copy the newly generated workflow.xml file to the <ALBPM Enterprise Edition>/enterprise/server/aler_engine directory.
Open the workflow.xml file using the XML editor of choice.
Make sure that the ALER Connection information, such as the URI and the registrar user name/password, are configured correctly as shown here.

   <alerconnection>
      <uri>http://server01.amer.bea.com:7005/aler/services/FlashlineRegistry </uri>
     <registrar>
       <user>admin</user>
       <password>admin</password>
     </registrar>
   </alerconnection>

The URI must use the following format:
http://<host>:<port>/<aler web app name>/services/FlashlineRegistry

Within the workflow.xml file, locate the assetType settings for the "Service" asset type, as shown here.

   <assetType name="Service" community="_CHANGE_COMMUNITY_" id="154">
     <allTabs>
     <allTabs>
       <tab name="Oveview"/>
       <tab name="UDDI: Business Entity"/>
       <tab name="Taxonomy"/>
       <tab name="Architecture"/>
     </allTabs>

Add the autoAccept attribute and set the value to true, as shown here.

   <assetType name="Application" community="_CHANGE_COMMUNITY_" id="154"  autoAccept="true">
     <allTabs>
     <allTabs>
       <tab name="Oveview"/>
       <tab name="UDDI: Business Entity"/>
       <tab name="Taxonomy"/>
       <tab name="Architecture"/>
     </allTabs>

Now the ALBPM Process Engine is configured to automatically accept any asset of type "Service."

If the ALBPM Process Engine is running, stop it and then restart it to load the latest workflow.xml changes.
The Refresh Workflow Configuration tool can be used to refresh the workflow.xml file without restarting the ALBPM Process Engine. For more information about refreshing the workflow.xml file, see Refreshing the Workflow Config File.

Triggering an Asset Submission Event

Once the ALBPM Process Engine is configured and running, follow these steps to process an asset submission event.

Launch the ALER Asset Editor from the Web console.

For information on using the ALER Asset Editor, refer to the ALER Registrar Guide.

Create a new asset from File ->New as shown below.

Figure 2-4 ALER Asset Editor - Create New Asset

ALER Asset Editor - Create New Asset

Note:

The Asset Type should be Service.

Click OK to submit the asset.
After the asset is submitted, switch to the ALBPM Log Viewer to make sure that the event is processed. To launch the Log Viewer, double-click the albpmlogviewer.exe file in the <ALBPM Enterprise Home>\bin directory.
Turn on the "Debug" level on the Log page of the Process Engine using the Process Administrator preference settings. By default, the level is set to "Warning."

Figure 2-5 ALBPM Process Administrator - Logging Preferences

ALBPM Process Administrator - Logging Preferences

When you turn on the Debug level though you will notice that the Process Engine prints a lot of information, not just for the ALER Advanced Registration Flows, but other Process Engine information as well. To filter the ALER logging, follow these steps:

Within the Log viewer, select Message in the left-most list box.
Select Begins With in the next list box.
Type ALER: in the text box
Click the Apply Filter button.

Figure 2-6 ALBPM Log Viewer

ALBPM Log Viewer

After the "ALER: Done accepting the asset" message is displayed in the Log Viewer, switch back to the Asset Editor, and then refresh the Administration tab using the View -> Refresh Tree command
Verify that the "Accepted" section is updated with the latest data, as shown here.