You can enable IMS™ applications
to issue both synchronous and asynchronous callout requests to external Java™ applications and services starting
from IMS TM
Resource Adapter Version
10. Version 10 also adds the support for IMS applications
to participate in business process choreography and in SOA solutions
that involve complex data types.
Tip: If Version 10 of the IMS TM
Resource Adapter is not
included in your version of the integrated development environment,
you can download the resource adapter from the IMS TM
Resource Adapter website
and import the resource adapter into your development environment.
In addition to all the base features in earlier versions
of IMS TM
Resource Adapter, IMS TM
Resource Adapter Version
10 provides the following new features.
Connection
failure recovery for callout messages
- The resource adapter will attempt to reconnect to IMS if the backend IMS data
store is not available. A new -1 value is added to the IMSActivationSpec
retryLimit property to support indefinite retry for connection. When
the retry is successful and the connection is restored, informational
messages are provided to indicate the successful re-connection.
Support
for a transaction to expire after the execution times out
- The OTMA transaction expiration function in IMS Version 10 and later enables a client application
to instruct IMS Connect to indicate
to IMS OTMA that, when the execution
times out, the client application no longer waits for the response,
and OTMA should discard or dequeue the transaction.
- Prior to this OTMA enhancement, when IMS does
not have the resources to process a transaction in the allotted time
frame as specified in the executionTimeout property, the transaction
cannot be cancelled.
- To support this OTMA enhancement, a new transExpiration property
is added to the IMSInteractionSpec class in IMS TM
Resource Adapter Version
10.4 and later to instruct OTMA to discard or dequeue the transaction
when the execution timeout value is reached.
- This support enables an IMS TM
resource adapter client
application to take advantage of the transaction expiration enhancement
in OTMA to relieve OTMA from having to process unnecessary messages
from the IMS TM
resource adapter.
- The OTMA transaction expiration function
for IMS Version 10 requires APARs
PK70458, PK74024, and PK74017.
Support
for the invocation of IMS applications
by using complex data types from distributed platforms
- With WebSphere® Transformation
Extender Design
Studio, you can build applications that send complex data formats
to and from IMS applications.
- WebSphere Transformation
Extender is
a transaction-oriented, data integration solution that automates the
transformation of high-volume, complex transactions across the enterprise.
You can use its Type Designer to generate a type tree from your COBOL
copybook. A type tree is a graphical data dictionary that contains
metadata definitions of the input and output structures. You then
use the Map Designer to specify rules for transforming and routing
data.
- With WebSphere Transformation
Extender, IMS applications can further participate
in your SOA solution when complex data formats are involved, including
data format standards such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Single
Euro Payments Area (SEPA), Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunications (SWIFT), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA).
- Support for both synchronous and asynchronous callout requests
from IMS applications to external
message-driven beans (MDBs), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) components, or web services.
- IMS applications that run
in IMS dependent regions can
interact with business logic that resides outside of the IMS environment by making either synchronous
or asynchronous callout requests to Java EE
applications that run on WebSphere Application
Server. IMS callout requests are routed to the external Java EE application through OTMA, IMS Connect, and the IMS TM
resource adapter. The Java EE application then retrieves
the callout request from the hold queue for further processing. Any
responses from external applications can be returned to the IMS system synchronously in the same
transaction, or asynchronously in a different transaction.
- For MDBs, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) authentication is supported
for communication with IMS through
the JCA 1.5 resource adapters inbound messaging support.
Important: Asynchronous callout support by using an
EJB was added in IMS TM
Resource Adapter Version
10.1. Synchronous callout support and the asynchronous callout support
by using an MDB are added in IMS TM
Resource Adapter Version
10.3.
- Business process choreography support of IMS conversations
- With WebSphere Integration
Developer and
the IMS TM
resource adapter,
you can build applications that are targeted to run on IBM®WebSphere Process
Server that invoke IMS conversational transactions.
Applications that are based on Service Component Architecture (SCA)
can connect and invoke IMS conversational
transactions through IMS Connect
at run time. You can use the new client-managed conversation state
programming model to enable IMS conversational
applications to participate in business process choreography.
- Support for reestablishing any stale connection in a connection
pool when the connection encounters a communication failure.
- With this enhancement, you can recycle IMS Connect during system maintenance without
having to resubmit any IMS TM
resource adapter interactions
from the client application.
- When a request comes in and uses a connection that just turned
stale because IMS Connect is
being recycled, the IMS TM
resource adapter will
throw an exception. When the next request comes in and tries to use
the same connection, the IMS TM
resource adapter will
check to see if IMS Connect is
up. If IMS Connect is up, the IMS TM
resource adapter will
reconnect before submitting the interaction request. Because the IMS TM
resource adapter will
reconnect the socket after it confirms that IMS Connect is up and running, you do not need
to manually manage the socket connection or resubmit any interactions.
- Rerouting undelivered output messages to a specified destination
for commit mode 0, SYNC_SEND interactions on sharable persistent sockets
- The reroute function allows undelivered output messages to be
rerouted to a specified destination. Previously, the reroute function
support was limited to commit mode 0 (CM0), SYNC_SEND_RECEIVE interactions
on sharable persistent sockets. This enhancement supports the reroute
function on CM0, SYNC_SEND interactions on sharable persistent sockets.
- Support for changing RACF® passwords
from Java applications
- Java applications can use
the IMS TM
resource adapter to
change the RACF password by
issuing a HWSPWCH command.
- Support for Java applications
to send PING requests to IMS Connect
- Java applications can use
the IMS TM
resource adapter to
send PING requests to IMS Connect
by issuing a PING IMS_CONNECT command.
- Support for returning multiple output messages for commit mode
0 interactions as a single, multi-segment message
- Multiple PURG calls in an IMS application for a commit mode 0 interaction
can be ignored and processed as a commit mode 1 interaction. For a
commit mode 0 SYNC_SEND_RECEIVE interaction, you can have the multiple
output messages returned as a single, multi-segment message by setting
the ignorePURGCall property of the IMSInteractionSpec object
to TRUE. This function simplifies the migration of commit mode 1 applications
to commit mode 0.
- Support for enhanced security for callout requests
- Retrieval of callout requests or asynchronous output messages
from the hold queue (RESUME TPIPE security) is enhanced through the
specification of a user ID that will be authorized by IMS OTMA.