Deploying Inbound SOAP Web Services

Once an Inbound SOAP Web Service is defined it is not automatically available to the Web Service Clients to access the system. The Deployment Status and the Active flag (set to true) indicate whether a Web Service is available or not. The last step is to deploy the Inbound SOAP Web Services to the Java EE Web Application Server. This deployment phase has a number of steps that are automatically performed when a deployment is initiated:

The Web Service files are generated and policies are attached.
The WSDL is generated with appropriate annotations and enumerations.
The necessary Java stub code to implement the Web Service in the Java EE Web Application Server is generated and compiled.
The Web Services are built into a valid Web Application Archive (WAR) file.
Optionally, the newly created Web Services WAR file is deployed to the Java EE Web Application Server. This can also be done manually for clustered deployments, if desired.

There are two methods available for deploying inbound SOAP web services:

Deployment at the command line using the iwsdeploy[.sh] command as outlined in the Server Administration Guide. This method is recommended for native installations and production implementations.
Deployment using the Inbound Web Service Deployment portal. This method is only supported in development (non-production) environments.

Inbound Web Service Deployment Portal

To use the online Inbound Web Service Deployment portal, navigate using Admin > Integration > Inbound Web Service Deployment.

The following sections describe the base zones that are provided on the portal.

Deploy Inbound SOAP Web Services

The Deploy Inbound SOAP Web Services zone provides information about the last deployment. If the region is a development (non-production) region you may use the Deploy button to deploy or re-deploy inbound web services. All inbound web services whose Active switch is Yes will be deployed. All whose active switch is No will be undeployed.

Note: When an Inbound SOAP Web Service is deployed, the value of its service revision field is captured. Certain changes to configuration will require re-deployment to take effect. When any of the following changes occur, the IWS service revision value is incremented. This will cause the deployment status to show Needs Deployment.

Active switch is changed
An Annotation is added or removed
An Operation is added or removed.
The Operation Name, Schema Type / Schema Name, Request or Response Schema, Request or Response XSL for an Operation is changed.

Note: In addition, if the implementation supports XAI services deployed through IWS, the appropriate XAI inbound services will also be deployed or undeployed as required.

Deployment Status

The Deployment Status zone displays a list of inbound SOAP web services in the product, including the deployment status.

The deployment status is determined by comparing the internal Service Revision field on each IWS against the value captured at the time of deployment.

Deployed. Indicates that the IWS has been deployed and no changes have been detected to the configuration.
Needs Deployment. Indicates that the IWS has never been deployed or has been deployed but in the meantime, changes have been detected to the configuration that require redeployment.
Undeployed. Indicates that the IWS is marked as inactive and the IWS is not found to be deployed at this time.
Needs Undeployment. Indicates that the IWS is marked as inactive but the IWS is found to be deployed at this time.

If the IWS has been deployed, the View column will include a WSDL link allowing you to launch a separate window to view the WSDL definition.

Note: For cloud installations, the system supports defining the WSDL URI via a substitution value defined for the token URI: @F1_BASE_IWS_URI@. The system will use this value per the functionality described in URI Substitution. When no value is defined, the system uses a default URL, which is the appropriate URL for on-premise installations.

Use the broadcast button adjacent to any of the inbound web services listed in the zone to view the details of the IWS record. This causes the Inbound Web Service zone to appear. It is the same zone that appears on the Inbound Web Service maintenance portal.

XAI Inbound Service Deployment Status

The XAI Inbound Service Deployment Status zone is only visible if the feature configuration option Support XAI Services via IWS is configured on the External Messages feature type or if the system detects that there are XAI inbound services that have been deployed. (The latter condition is checked for the case where an implementation has XAI inbound services deployed and then chooses to discontinue using this functionality. After changing the feature configuration option to false, one more deployment is required to "undeploy" the XAI services.) The zone displays a list of XAI inbound services in the product that are related to page services. Refer to Deploying XAI Inbound Service via IWS for more information.

The deployment status is determined by comparing the record’s Version field against the value captured at the time of deployment.

Deployed. Indicates that the XAI inbound service has been deployed and no changes have been detected to the configuration.
Needs Deployment. Indicates that the XAI inbound service has not been deployed or has been deployed but in the meantime, changes have been detected to the configuration.
Undeployed. Indicates that the XAI inbound service is marked as inactive or the Support XAI Services via IWS is not set to true and the XAI inbound service is not found to be deployed at this time.
Needs Undeployment. Indicates that the XAI inbound service is marked as inactive or the Support XAI Services via IWS is not set to true but the XAI inbound service is found to be deployed at this time.

XAI inbound service does not have the equivalent of a Service Revision field that inbound web service has, which is only incremented when changes are made to the record that impact deployment. For XAI inbound service, the version number on the record is used. This field is incremented when any changes are made, even ones that may not impact deployment. As a result, some XAI Inbound Services may indicate "Needs Deployment" in cases where a redeployment may not be necessary. The recommendation when this occurs is to simply Deploy again to be safe.

If the IWS has been deployed, the View column will include a WSDL link allowing you to launch a separate window to view the WSDL definition.