iWay Integration Application (iIA) provides an automated, scriptable, deployment toolset that enables you to build and deploy integration solutions to development, test, and production environments. iIA is an application format that can contain multiple channels and services as well as custom iWay Functional Language (iFL) functions, agents and other dependencies. iWay Integration Tools (iIT), iSM Administration Console, and deployment scripts will use Applications as containers for pre-built channels and services. Applications can be source managed and shared among different operational environments.

Various operational environments (such as development, test, or production) are represented by specific server Templates. Templates contain specific environment settings (for example, email addresses, database connection parameters, and so on) in Special Registers (SREGs) or Providers.

Once on iWay server, an Application can be deployed by using a Template.

iWay Integration Application (iIA) is an integration solution with a dedicated runtime environment. It can be deployed, started, stopped, and deleted without affecting other iIAs.

iIA allows you to:

Build application archives in a development environment and deploy them to test and production environments.
Build application archives from the iWay Registry or an iIT project.
Manage application deployment from iIT, iSM Administration Console, and deployment scripts.

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Use Cases

This section outlines a few use cases to highlight the advantages of an iIA solution.

Transferring an iWay Application from a Development Server to a Production Server
On a development server, an application should send email to the developer, while on a production server, an application should send email to production support. Using iIA, a Production Template can be used to set an email special register to production.support@ibi.com, while the Development Template can set this special register to developer@ibi.com.
Building iWay Integration Applications in iWay Integration Tools
In this scenario, a user has an iIT project containing a channel, two process flows, and a Transform component. They are all part of an application, which the user wants to build and deploy to a development server.

The user creates an iWay Application Archive (iAA) from the iIT project. This creates an application archive file in the iIT project with all of the default deployment properties pre-defined in the project. If there is a name collision or an unresolved dependency, the build fails.

Another option for building an iAA is to run an iWay Ant task and point it to the iIT project location. This approach allows building iAAs without any user interaction.
Building and Deploying iWay Integration Applications From the iWay Registry Using the iSM Administration Console
In this scenario, a user selects existing channels and process flows from the iWay Registry, builds an iWay Application Archive (iAA) and then (optionally) creates a new Template. Finally, the user deploys the iIA by combining an iAA with a Template. The iIA can be started from the command line, just like any other iWay server configuration.
Configuring Automatic Deployments on Multiple Remote Servers
In this scenario, a pre-built iWay Application Archive (iAA) is stored in an artifact repository or in a source management system. A user wants to deploy this iAA to multiple servers. The shell script for this use case checks the iAA out of the artifact repository, transfers the file to each server, opens a secure shell connection to each remote server and executes "deploy" and "start application" commands using the iWay Ant extension.

Metadata

Similar to other iWay components, an iWay Integration Application (iIA) includes the following metadata:

Target managed server name (defaults to the name of the iIA).
A brief description of the iIA.
Host and user name of the computer on which the iIA was developed.
A list of components packaged in the iIA.
Special deployment preferences for the iIA (startup script).
A more detailed help page for the iIA (optional).
Required bindings (for development, test, and production environments).

Application metadata can be managed in iIT using the Application Wizard. Application metadata is persisted in an application descriptor file.

Admin Servers

Admin servers are "old-style" managed configurations, such as “base”. They allow atomic deployments of channels and services, but can not be used to deploy an iWay Integration Application (iIA). iIAs on the other hand do not support atomic deployments of channels and services or other applications.

Templates

A template is a user-defined server configuration profile that is used to support a particular runtime environment (for example, development, test, and production deployments). Templates can not be started or stopped. They are used to produce iIAs or other templates. Configuration templates are created from the iSM console. Templates contain a collection of server settings and are particularly useful for pre-setting global registers and providers.

Ant Tasks

Apache Ant is a popular tool for building, deployment, and system administration tasks. iWay Integration Applications can be managed by Ant using iWay Ant tasks. The following table lists and describes the Ant tasks that are implemented.

Ant Task

Description

iwbuild <directory>

Builds an iWay Application Archive (iAA) from an iIT project.

iwdeploy <archive> <template>

Creates an iWay Integration Application (iIA) from an iAA and a Template.

iwstart <iIA>

Starts an iIA.

iwstop <iIA>

Stops an iIA.

iwdelete <iIA>

Deletes an iIA.

Ant Task	Description
iwbuild <directory>	Builds an iWay Application Archive (iAA) from an iIT project.
iwdeploy <archive> <template>	Creates an iWay Integration Application (iIA) from an iAA and a Template.
iwstart <iIA>	Starts an iIA.
iwstop <iIA>	Stops an iIA.
iwdelete <iIA>	Deletes an iIA.

iWay Application Archives (Deployments)

The combined use of iWay Application Archives (iAAs) created in iIT with runtime templates create a dedicated runtime configuration environment, which is a standalone configuration (server instance), where the application in the archive is made available.

Administration Console

iWay Integration Applications (iIAs), iWay Application Archives (iAAs), and Templates are managed from the iSM Administration Console.

The Templates pane is shown in the following image. The Templates pane allows you to add and delete Templates that are used for iIAs.

The Applications pane is shown in the following image. The Applications pane allows you to upload, download, create, and delete iIAs.

The Deployments pane is shown in the following image. The Deployments pane allows you to deploy iIAs by selecting an available Template and iAA.

Admin servers, iIAs, and Templates are displayed in separate sections within the Management drop-down list, as shown in the following image.

The Monitoring pane is shown in the following image, which provides a status of all iIAs and their associated channels at a glance.

The General Properties pane of the iSM Administration Console now includes an Application section in the table, as shown in the following image.

The Application Sources pane is shown in the following image, which lists the iWay components that are included in the iIA.

Monitoring

Deployed applications are managed and monitored from the console. The Monitoring pane provides the status of iIA channels.

Validating

When you develop an application in Java, you must ensure that all dependencies are satisfied and that no name collisions exist in the project. In case of a name collision or missing dependency, the application fails to build and compilation errors are generated as a result.

Similarly, an iWay Integration Application will not build unless all name collisions are resolved and all application dependencies are in the project. A pre-build service searches for name collisions and missing dependencies and will create a separate entry for each issue in the Problems view.