Insurance Claim Scenario: Orchestration using the WS-BPEL SE, the Java EE SE, and the HTTP/SOAP BC

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This was the scenario we presented at JavaOne 2006 in the session titled TS-3175: Building a Service With BPEL and the Java™ EE Platform: How Composite Applications and JBI Simplify SOA Development

This write-up serves as an example of how a composite application can be created and deployed in the JBI environment. It leverages the HTTP/SOAP Binding Component, the WS-BPEL Service Engine, and the Java EE service engine during runtime, and the NetBeans IDE during design-time. It shows how services deployed on these different JBI component containers can be orchestrated together to solve a business problem.

JBI Components:

1. WS-BPEL Service Engine
2. HTTP/SOAP Binding Component
3. Java EE Service Engine
   

Composite Application:

A set of Enterprise JavaBeans exposed as WebServices.
A JBI Service Assembly consisting of the following service units

• BPEL Engine provider Service Unit consuming all the other provided services.
• HTTP SOAP binding consumer for servicing external requests.
  

Business Use case

The following is a typical Insurance Claim Scenario where a customer files a claim with the Insurer. On receiving the claim information, the Insurer invokes a webservice called the Claim Numberer to generate a unique claim number for the details submitted by the customer. On receiving the claim number information from the Claim Numberer, the Insurer passes the claim number on to the customer.

The Insurer now does a couple of things in parallel. The Insurer invokes an external web service called the BookValue service providing it the details of the claim to get the current book value of the car. Simultaneously, the Insurer also invokes an external web service called the Adjuster and passes the claim information submitted by the client along with associated claim number. The adjuster after doing his research, submits a repair value to repair the damage to the Insurer.

The Insurer now goes into a Repair-or-WriteOff scenario, where if the book value is greater than the repair value, the Insurer invokes a Finance web service to pay the repairer to repair the car. If the book value is NOT greater than the repair value, the Insurer invokes the Finance web service to pay the customer and write-off the car.

Intent

We demonstrated the Insurance Claim Scenario at JavaOne 2006 in the session entitled "TS-3175: Building a Service With BPEL and the Java™ EE Platform: How Composite Applications and JBI Simplify SOA Development". It show-cased how to use the plethora of design time tools bundled in the Java EE Tools Bundle to create an Insurance Claim composite application and deploy them on to the JBI meta-container running on GlassFish that hosts a Java EE Service Engine, a WS-BPEL Service Engine and a HTTP/SOAP Binding Component. It also demonstrated how to debug the application using  both the WS-BPEL debugger and the JPDA debugger dynamically switching between WS-BPEL and Java code.

Implementation using JBI

The above business case can be implemented based on SOA principles and the JBI specification using the Java EE Tools Bundle today. The EJB module consisting of all the EJB WebServices has to be deployed. The Service Assembly (composite application) which consists of all the Service Units has to be deployed.

The figure below illustrates the business process related to this scenario.


Figure 1: InsuranceClaim BPEL

Artifacts

You can access the session slides as a PDF from this link.
You can access the project artifacts by clicking here.

Can't get any easier than this - Watch the Videos online:

Demonstration Videos for Creating the Insurance Claim Composite Application

(You will need the Flash Player plugin to view these videos.)

1. Create the InsuranceClaim EJB WebServices Project
2. Create a new JBI BPEL Project and import the required WSDLs and XSDs
3. Create the WSDL for InsuranceClaim
4. Create the Wrapper WSDL with imports, partnerLinkTypes, Message Property, Property Aliases and specify queries for message correlation
5. Create the BPEL
6. Create the Composite Application Project, add the BPEL Module, and deploy the assembly to the JBI Meta-Container
7. Test and Debug the deployed Composite Application project switching between the BPEL and JPDA Debuggers

Download the Java EE 5 Tools Bundle Beta from http://java.sun.com/javaee/downloads/index.jsp for FREE, and provide us feedback on the improvements you'd like to see. It combines the new Java EE 5 SDK with NetBeans IDE 5.5 Beta, NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 Early Access, and Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9. This bundle also contains Project Open ESB Starter Kit Beta, Java EE 5 samples, Java BluePrints, and API docs (Javadoc).


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