Eduard’s Weblog

Dominik Meyer hat im XING Form „WebSphere Process Server“ auf zwei interessante Artikel von IBM zur Performance Tuning von IBM WebSphere Process Server hingewiesen:

• Tuning Human Workflows with Materilized Views
• Tuning of Automatic Processes

Wirklich lesenswert für alle die mit dem IBM WebSphere Process Server arbeiten müssen.

General

• Use the latest service pack level. Fixes can be found on IBM WPS support site: http://www-306.ibm.com/software/integration/wps/support/
• Do not use default path to install. Choose the shortest possible path, avoid blanks (i.e. C:\IBM\WPS).
• Design your service interfaces first. Adding additional fields after deployment may cause issues.
• Reuse existing applications and do not try to split them up if not necessary.

Business Processes

• Prefer BPEL constructs in processes over Java inline code.
• Avoid potential deadlock situations: do not access same variables from two parallel paths and use escalation or timeout mechanism for any asynchronous blocking activity.
• Use dynamic modeling options for decision based on runtime data.
• Use BPEL Fault Handlers when you think that this fault is a part of your business process logic.
• Use “continue on error” option if faults are rarely expected and require human intervention.
• External large data should be referenced.
• Regularly cleanup process choreographer database to speed up query performance.
• Use WPS Business Rules, if the process needs to be changed frequently.

Human Task Manager

Inline task:
An inline task is defined within an implementation of a business process.
Model as an inline task if:

• you need information from the process context
• you want to execute administrative tasks
• you want to define authorization rights on specific activities

Stand-alone task:
A stand-alone task exists independently of a business process.
Model as stand-alone task if:

• you do not need any information from the process context
• your implementation need to be BPEL compliant
• the task should be reused

Business State Machine

• Do not put any logic in generated BPEL.
• It will be overridden when changing state machine.
• Use a composite state to reduce number of transitions needed.
• Avoid long-running service calls in business state machine models.
• Not sure: use BPEL process

Business Rule Manager

• Know the difference between rule set (can be executed with multiple results) and decision table (only first positive condition will fire the action).
• Trying to write a rule set which will have one outcome may become very complex and difficult to maintain.
• Do not forget about security. BRM is tied to J2EE and EJB role settings and without global security anyone can modify/delete business rules!

Development and customer integration

• Use windows platform for development. Unix based systems are difficult to configure and need more time to setup system.
• Setup repositories to avoid concurrent modification of files.
• Use configuration scripts shipped with product or create your own for automating administrative tasks.
• Make a backup regularly.
• Make a deep testing of your system before deploying to production. Try to get service definitions and original data to be integrated. Use WSP testing mechanism.
• Enable WebSphere Security from the first day.