Overview

Exception handling is the identification of failed components or systems. In eXchange Integrator, exception handling allows one or more components to throw an exception that is caught by eXchange Integrator within a scope. Using the scope element, you can configure eXchange Integrator to catch all exceptions or certain exceptions that you specify. The elements that you use to configure exception handling in your model are:

• Catch Named Exceptions

• Catch All Exceptions

Exception handling in B2B protocols relies heavily on the concept of compensation. Compensation is an application-specific activity that reverse the effects of a previous activity that was carried out as part of a larger unit of work that is being abandoned.

B2B protocols are often of long duration and use asynchronous messages for communication. They also manipulate sensitive business data in back-end databases and line-of-business applications. As a result, the overall business transaction may fail or be cancelled after many transactions have been committed during its progress. In these cases, the partial work may need to be reversed.

Exception Handling Configuration

Exception handlers are configured to catch errors that are thrown by eGate components and/or Web Services. These systems can be configured to publish one or more exceptions.

• Manual Exception Handling: The model can contain B2B protocol logic designed to handle the exception.

• Automatic Exception Handling: Pre-packaged functionality guides the user to create multiple types of catches for thrown exceptions.

Each exception can be handled differently. The following represents one example:

Exception Handling Example

1. Build the exception handling logic as a B2B protocol.

2. Select the exception handler to configure which exception triggers the exception handling process.

3. Drag the Scope element onto the eXchange Protocol Designer canvas.

4. Drag the Exception modeling element into the scope for which it should take effect.

5. Define a B2B protocol that appropriately handles each exception.

6. Model manual exceptions in a B2B protocol.

7. Configure the exception handler to take place when one of the components within the Scope throws the appropriate exception.

Identifying Component or System Failures

Exception management allows users to quickly identify and correct problems with components or systems.

• Users can filter the list of displayed instances to quickly identify exceptions.

• Users can easily navigate to particular versions of a B2B protocol to monitor the progress of instances.

• A Web-based interface allows users to securely access the monitoring environment over the Internet.

• Identification of troubled instances, such as time-outs or bad messages.

• Failed components/systems create visual alerts via the B2B protocol monitoring interface. The integrated monitoring environment allows you to identify the problem, assign a resource to fix the problem, and if necessary, restart the affected instances.

• Users can quickly identify troubled instances from a large number of instances, repair and restart that instance for continued processing.