EIPinCPI - Control Bus

[bhalchandraswcg]

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This week, we'll begin studying the System Management patterns. And, the first one is known as Control Bus.

When do I use this pattern?

Control Bus comprises of tools that enable management of the messaging system. Generally, Control Bus uses the same messaging mechanism of the system, however, uses a separate channel. The control bus is used to change the configuration, check if individual components are active, sending test message, exception handling, collect statistics, and provide console to do these activities.

Control Bus in CPI

In CPI, only some features of the control bus are available.

Configuration

In CPI, artefacts can be configured through the Design tab. The actions for configuring include:

• Setting the configurable attributes


• Deploying the artefact


• Restarting the artefact


• Undeploying the artefact

In Neo, the adapters can be configured in Eclipse tool. The actions include:

• Deploying the adapter


• Undeploying the adapter

For a full list of activities that can be performed check SAP Help Document on Managing Integration Content.

Component Status

Similarly, individual components can be monitored for their status in the Monitoring tab. Adapter monitoring is available through the Eclipse tool. The non-editable out-of-the-box components can also be monitored through the Eclipse tool.

Test Message

Currently, CPI does not provide this functionality out-of-the-box.

Exception Handling

In CPI, the exception handling through control bus is not available. Instead, the errored messages can be filtered in the Monitoring so that the operator can take a decision on the resolution.

Statistics

Currently, CPI does not provide this functionality out-of-the-box.

It is possible to use the Message Processing Logs API to generate interesting statistics, for example, the average time for a message between two systems, the percentage of messages failed for a given flow, and so on.

I would also argue that this information is not useful for the users of the CPI (the client). Instead, SAP would need the statistics to maintain the system for their clients.

Console

As discussed above there are three user interfaces to configure the components or to check the component status: the Design tab for configuration, the Monitoring tab for monitoring artefacts, the Eclipse tool to monitor adapters and other non-editable components.

EIPinCPI Rating - 5/10

With the missing of Test Message, Exception Handling, and Statistics in CPI, the rating of 5 out of 10 is justified.

Please note that the rating only denotes how well CPI implements the pattern and does not rate the monitoring and configuration capabilities of the CPI on their own.

Conclusion

In CPI, some features of Control Bus are available.

References/Further Readings

• Control Bus Pattern in Enterprise Integration Patterns


• SAP Help Document on Managing Integration Content


• Message Processing Logs API

Hope this helps,
Bala

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