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Chapter 1. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works

1.1. What is Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works?

Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works is a platform for developing enterprise application integration (EAI) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions. It consists of a service component framework, business rules/complex event processing, life-cycle governance, runtime governance, and process automation. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works is built on the same core as JBoss Fuse, and includes enterprise messaging, Apache Camel, and Apache CXF. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works enables users to design, deploy, integrate, and orchestrate business services.
Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works can be used to integrate your major business systems into a cohesive infrastructure. Development is simplified with a transparent, lightweight service framework which uses Enterprise Integration Platform (EIP) technology. This allows developers to work with familiar technologies such as Apache Camel, BPEL, BPMN, or POJOs. To reduce the operational costs of production and maintenance, the platform utilizes an automatable, content-aware repository and service activity monitoring. These support the entire service life cycle.

1.2. Core Functionality

Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works provides the following core functionality:
Enterprise Integration Pattern (EIP) Based Development
The versatile EIP framework is implemented in routing and transformation processes for faster and more efficient integration solutions.
High Performance Messaging
A high performance messaging broker supports messaging patterns such as publish-subscribe, point-to-point, and store-forward, and multiple cross language clients.
Service Development
The web services framework exposes integration assets as services and calls external services, supporting all major web services standards. It also supports RESTful calls.
Structured Service Development
A lightweight service development framework provides full life-cycle support for developing, deploying, and managing service-based applications.
Automatable Registry with Workflow
Manage the life-cycle of services from design, development, and deployment by defining, exposing, and enforcing rules or policies.
Business Transaction Monitoring
Capture service activity information, define and collect metrics, and define alerts and SLAs.

1.3. System Integration

Integrating your major business systems into a cohesive infrastructure can be a challenge, especially when you have legacy applications. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works provides a number of ways that enable you to integrate both new and legacy applications. Development is simplified with a transparent, lightweight service framework which uses the EIP technology. This allows developers to focus on higher order concepts while still working with familiar technologies such as Apache Camel, BPEL, BPMN, or POJOs. To reduce the operational costs of production and maintenance, the platform utilizes an automatable, content-aware repository and service activity monitoring. These support the entire service life cycle and development, QA, and production teams with runtime and design-time visibility, monitoring, and alerting.

1.4. Integration Use Case

Acme Equity is a large financial service. The company possesses many databases and systems. Some are older, COBOL-based legacy systems and some are databases obtained through the acquisition of smaller companies in recent years. It is challenging and expensive to integrate these databases as business rules frequently change. The company wants to develop a new series of client-facing e-commerce websites, but these may not synchronize well with the existing systems as they currently stand.
The company wants an inexpensive solution but one that adheres to the strict regulations and security requirements of the financial sector. What the company does not want to do is to have to write and maintain “glue code” to connect their legacy databases and systems.
Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works was selected as a middleware layer to integrate these legacy systems with the new customer websites. It provides a bridge between front-end and back-end systems. Business rules implemented with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works can be updated quickly and easily.
As a result, older systems can now synchronize with newer ones due to the unifying methods of Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works. There are no bottlenecks, even with tens of thousands of transactions per month. Various integration types, such as XML, JMS and FTP, are used to move data between systems. Any one of a number of enterprise-standard messaging systems can be plugged into Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works providing further flexibility.
An additional benefit is that the system can now be scaled upwards easily as more servers and databases are added to the existing infrastructure.

1.5. Core and Components

Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works provides an environment for easily applying SOA concepts to integrated applications. A SwitchYard application consists of components such as composite services and composite references. These provide service definitions and accessibility.
Along with SwitchYard, Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works is made up of a number of components including a rules-based router (Apache Camel), a web service framework (Apache CXF), and a message broker (Apache ActiveMQ).

1.6. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works Features

SwitchYard
SwitchYard is a lightweight service delivery framework providing full life-cycle support for developing, deploying, and managing service-oriented applications.
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
You can use web services to orchestrate business rules using this language. It is included with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works for the execution of business process instructions.
Smooks
This transformation engine can be used in conjunction with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works to process messages. It can also be used to split messages and send them to the correct destination.
JBoss Rules
This is the rules engine that is packaged with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works. It can infer data from the messages it receives to determine which actions need to be performed.

1.7. Components of Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works

Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works ships with a number of components which enable its multi-functional capabilities.

Table 1.1. Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works Components

Component Function
SwitchYard
Service delivery framework
JBoss Rules
Business rules engine with complex event processing
Design Time Governance
A service registry/repository
Runtime Governance
Service activity monitoring
JBoss Operations Network
Operations, administration, and management tools
JBoss EAP
A full JavaEE application server
Apache Camel
Rules Based Router
Smooks
Framework for processing XML and non-XML data using Java
ModeShape
Data Store
ActiveMQ/A-MQ Messaging
Messaging and Integration Patterns Server
Apache CXF
Services Framework
These components can be used in Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works to enable developers to build the required functionality using reliable and familiar tools. Some examples of how the components can be used are shown below:
Bean Services with CDI
SwitchYard leverages the power of Java EE6 and CDI to allow Java objects become services by adding an @Service annotation to your bean. Beans are automatically registered at runtime and references to other services can be injected as CDI beans using the @Inject annotation. Use CDI in your JSP and JSF applications to inject enterprise services into the web tier.
Declarative Transformation
With declarative transformation in SwitchYard, you can define the transformation and types to which it applies. SwitchYard automatically registers and executes the transformation. Choose from Smooks, Java, XSLT, JSON, and more.
Decision Services with JBoss Rules
Encapsulate business rules as decision services using the JBoss Rules component in SwitchYard. Each service has a well-defined contract with protocol binding details and marshaling details abstracted away by SwitchYard.
Smooks
This transformation engine can be used in conjunction with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works to process messages.
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
You can use web services to orchestrate business rules using this language. It is included with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works for the execution of business process instructions.
JBoss Rules
This is the rules engine that is packaged with Red Hat JBoss Fuse Service Works. It can infer data from the messages it receives to determine which actions need to be performed.
Testing
Comprehensive unit test support is provided to allow you to test services as you develop them.

1.8. SwitchYard

SwitchYard is a service delivery framework that provides complete support to develop, deploy and manage service-oriented applications. It allows you to deploy and run services with limited dependencies. A SwitchYard application consists of components such as composite services and composite references. These provide service definitions and accessibility.