The JBI Composite Application (CA) project system, sometimes called the “JBI project system,” allows users to create instances of SOA composite application projects within the NetBeans IDE.

Acronyms	Explanation
CA	Composite Application
BPEL	Business Process Execution Language
JBI	Java Business Integration
SU	Service Unit. A Service Unit is a jar file which can be deployed into a JBI service engine or binding component.
SA	Service Assembly. A service assembly is jar file which is a collection of service unit jars. A service assembly jar packages different service unit jars which then can be deployed to various JBI components (service engines or binding components).

Each composite application project instance is a container holding the deployment configuration for a collection of JBI component subprojects, e.g., BPEL Module projects, XSLT projects, etc. It also maintains deployment specific data objects, such as WSDL, XSD, and JBI deployment descriptor files. The JBI Composite Application (CA) project system allows the user to create a Service Assembly (SA) artifact that contains all the subprojects as Service Units (SUs). The SA can then be deployed to the JBI component containers on the JBI Meta-container.

It provides a project folder with subfolders on the local file system for storing project specific design and configuration data. Key project actions are implemented as ant scripts providing support for standard actions such as: Configure, Clean, Build, and Deploy. Most of the ant action scripts can be invoked outside of Netbeans IDE when supplied with proper property files.

The main objective of the project system is to provide a deployment container for various types of JBI component projects. It provides support for users to selectively include JBI component projects and deployment data. This allows one to reuse JBI component projects for different deployment scenarios.

An architectural overview of the JBI Composite Application Project system is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: JBI Composite Application Project system

To provide accurate target deployment information, the project system accesses active JBI servers to retrieve information on deployed JBI components, e.g., id and state. This information will allow users to update the deployment configuration to match that of the target JBI server. This feature utilizes services provided by the JBI Manager discussed in an earlier blog entry.

The project system provides support allowing user to customize the deployment configuration for different usage scenarios. This service is provided by tools, that allows one to add/modify deployment specific data within a composite application project, so that JBI component projects can be designed to be more generic and be reusable in multiple deployment scenarios.

The project system performs validation of SU deployment descriptor generated by JBI component projects. If needed, new deployment descriptors are generated with modifications or additions based on the deployment configuration specified by the composite application project.

The project system generates the SA deployment package according to the JBI spec that packages SU deployment jars from JBI component projects with updated deployment configuration as specified by the composite application project.

The SA deployment package can be deployed to the target JBI Meta-container on the server for execution.

Create A New Composite Application Project
The user can create a new JBI composite application project. This works in conjunction with standard netbeans new project action which can be launched from File->New Project.

Add Component Subprojects
Users can add component subprojects into the composite application. On the project explorer, the user can right click on the newly created project to bring up the context action menu as shown below:


Figure 2:

The “Add JBI Module” opens the Select Project dialog. The user can select component subprojects to add into the composite application.

The JBI Composite Application Project System allows the user to add and remove component subprojects.

Figure 3: Add/Remove component subprojects

Once a project has been created and configured, the user can build the project to create JBI service assembly deployment artifacts. Select the “Build Project” item on the context menu to start the build action.



A successful build will create the SA deployment zip file for the project. After the build is successful, the user should be able to deploy the service assembly to the target JBI meta-container on the application server and start the services. Select the “Deploy Project” item on the context menu to start the deployment action. A successful deployment will start the service assembly on the target server.


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).

[Listen to this article]