ActiveBPEL™ Designer User’s Guide

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Tutorial Part 9: Deploying the Process

To start at the beginning of the tutorial, see Introduction to ActiveBPEL Tutorial.

If you have followed all tutorial parts so far, you have designed and debugged a BPEL process.

It is time to deploy the process to the ActiveBPEL Server. Deployment is the act of publishing your BPEL process to the ActiveBPEL Server where it can run. In the deployment procedure, you use the WS-Addressing specification to define endpoint references.

In the Navigator view of ActiveBPEL, you should have the following files:

• tutorial.bpel that you created in Part 2
• loanapproval_tutorial_complete.bpel, a completed version of the file created in Part 2

By completing Part 9 of the tutorial, you will be able to:

• Complete the prerequisite checklist for deployment
• Create a process deployment descriptor file
• Create a workspace project to hold deployment files
• Create a business process deployment archive
• Deploy the business process archive to the server

Step 1: Complete the prerequisite checklist for deployment

A BPEL file is ready for deployment to the ActiveBPEL Server when there are no errors in the Tasks view and when a simulated execution of the process terminates normally.

1. Open tutorial.bpel.
2. Simulate the process, as described in Tutorial Part 8: Simulating the Process, and test all execution paths.

Step 2: Create a process deployment descriptor file

A Process Deployment Descriptor (.pdd) file describes the relationship between the partner links defined in the BPEL file and the implementation required to interact with actual partner endpoints. You create a .pdd file to indicate where your endpoint references are. The .pdd file is an integral part of the deployment package for the process.

Recall that the loan approval process has the following definitions for partner links:

You will assign an endpoint type for each partner role and will provide access protocol information for the process role (My Role). An endpoint type is a binding property that indicates the actual service the process interacts with. Different types give you control over specifying services you work with now and in the future. In this tutorial, you will indicate a static, “hard-coded” reference to partner services.

1. Select File>New>Deployment Descriptor to open the New Deployment Descriptor dialog as shown.



2. Do not change the Deployment Platform. ActiveBPEL Engine is the appropriate choice for this deployment. Select tutorial.bpel and click Next.
3. On the platform deployment options page, the only selection applicable for ActiveBPEL Engine is Process Persistence. By default the ActiveBPEL Engine is not configured for persisting processes to a database. Do not make any changes on this page, and click Next.



4. On the Configure process deployment page, select approver from the Partner Links list.
5. Do not change the Invoke Handler selection. Invoke handlers allow you to bypass the system default invocation framework of the ActiveBPEL Engine by providing another options. The other options have requirements, as described in the Deployment topics of online help.
6. Select Static from the Endpoint Type list, as shown in the example.



WS-Addressing is automatically added based on the binding information in the WSDL file.

7. Select assessor and then select Static as the Endpoint Type.
8. Select customer, and in the My Role panel, select RPC Encoded for the Binding style.
9. In the Service field, change the customerService name to LoanService.
10. Leave the Allowed Roles field blank, leave the My Role Policy tab blank, and click Finish. There is another pages of the pdd wizard, but it does not apply to the ActiveBPEL Engine.

The .pdd file opens in an editor, as shown in the following example.



11. Close tutorial.pdd.

Step 3: Create a new project folder for deployed files

As a good practice, you will create a folder within your project to hold deployment files.

1. In the Navigator, select ActiveBPEL_Tutorial, and from the right-mouse menu, select New>Other.
2. Select General>Folder, and click Next.
3. Name the folder bpr, as the example shows.

Step 4: Create a business process deployment archive and target deployment folder

To deploy your process to the ActiveBPEL Server, you must add all relevant files to an archive file (.bpr file), which is similar to a Web archive file.

1. Select File>Export>ActiveBPEL>Business Process Archive File and click Next.
2. Select the tutorial.pdd file to include in the archive, as shown in the following example.



3. For the export destination BPR file, browse to the bpr folder and name the .bpr file tutorial.bpr. Your path should be similar to the following:

ActiveBPEL Designer\Designer\workspace\ActiveBPEL_Tutorial\bpr\tutorial.bpr

4. Select File in the Type field and in the Deployment location field, browse to the following location:

[ActiveBPEL Designer Installation folder]\Server\ActiveBPEL_Tomcat\bpr

Selecting this option automatically deploys your .bpr file to the ActiveBPEL server upon completion of the export.

5. Select the check box next to Save the archive specification..., and browse to the bpr folder. Your path should be similar to the following:

ActiveBPEL Designer\Designer\workspace\ActiveBPEL_Tutorial\bpr

6. Name the BPRD file tutorial.bprd. This file is an Ant script which you can run to re-deploy the bpr file whenever you modify a .bpel or .pdd file.
7. Select Finish.
8. To view the bpr and bprd files in Navigator, select File>Refresh.

Continue to Tutorial Part 10: Running the Process on the Server.

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