About System Manager

System Manager is a plug-in that runs within the Eclipse-based tooling frameworks named WebSphere Studio Workbench and WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition. This section provides an overview of the Eclipse framework, WSWB and WSADIE, and of the IBM WebSphere Adapter tools plug-ins.

About the Eclipse Platform

The Eclipse Platform is an open-source integrated development environment (IDE) for the creation of tools. It provides tools developers with a development kit and runtime that enables the developer to write plug-ins that allow the user to work with a particular type of resource.

IBM has two branded versions of the Eclipse platform--WebSphere Studio WorkBench (WSWB) and WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition (WSADIE).

Plug-ins

Plug-ins are the modular extensions that software vendors develop to add functionality to an Eclipse-based workbench. Plug-ins encapsulate the perspectives, editors, and views that enable users of the workbench to work with particular types of resources.

For instance, one plug-in might provide the features of a text editor. Another plug-in might provide the features of an HTML editor. The System Manager tool plug-ins provide the features to work with integration components. The benefit of this plug-in model is that the user has a single tool in which they can work with many types of resources, rather than using dedicated tools for each type of resource.

To install a plug-in, you extract one or more compressed archives that represents the plug-in into the plugins directory within the product directory of your workbench. The System Manager plug-ins are extracted into the plugins directory by the installer.

IBM provides the System Manager plug-ins with the WebSphere Business Integration Adapter framework to work with business integration resources. These plug-ins are embodied by a number of uncompressed directories in the plugins directory of your workbench within the com.ibm.btools namespace. Much of the primary interface you will use in creating integration components--the System Manager--is encompassed in the contents of the com.ibm.btools.csm plug-in directory, for instance.

Workbench

The workbench is the collection of perspectives, editors, and views that are active in your Eclipse-based tooling framework, which are in turn affected by the collection of plug-ins you have installed and enabled. It is a general term used to refer to the Eclipse-based interface in which you are working, independent of the fact that the interface changes depending on how you use it.

Workspace

A workspace is a container for projects. The workspace is a directory in the file system where, by default, you are prompted to store your projects.

Projects

Projects are user-defined groups of resources, and are ultimately directories in the file system.

One of your first tasks when developing a business process interface is to define an integration component library, which is a project that contains the components you develop. When you create the integration component library you specify the location in the file system where it is stored (by default this is the workspace directory). A folder is created in that location with the name you specify for the integration component library and within the library folder a number of folders is created for each type of integration component (for instance, there are folders named BusinessObjects and Connectors).

You also create projects named user projects. User projects are collections of shortcuts that reference integration components. You must add integration components to a user project from integration component libraries in order to deploy components to an integration broker. Besides being required to deploy components to a server, user projects are designed to allow you to functionally group components together. An integration component library is a collection of all components you might need to work with, but a user project is designed to let you group together the components you are working on for a specific interface.

Resources

Resources are projects, files, and folders that you work with in the workbench.

When you create an integration component, it is stored as a file in the appropriate folder within the integration component library project. The different types of integration components are stored with different extensions (for instance, connectors are stored with extension .con), but they are all stored in XML format.

Perspectives

A perspective is a grouping of editors and views designed to provide a particular user role with what it requires. For instance, the System Manager perspective provides views for working with integration component libraries.

Editors

Editors allow you to open, save, and close resources in the workbench.

Views

Views provide information about the resources with which you are working in the workbench.

System Manager, for example, has the WebSphere Business Integration System Manager view, which is the view to integration component libraries and user projects.

About WSWB and WSADIE

WebSphere Studio Workbench (WSWB) is an IBM-branded release of the Eclipse platform. IBM delivers WSWB with its integration brokers and you can install it along with the core infrastructure. WSWB is capable of running all the plug-ins necessary to develop WebSphere Business Integration Adapters integration components.

WebSphere Studio Application Developer Integration Edition (WSADIE) is an IBM-branded release of the Eclipse platform, like WSWB, but can also be used to develop new plug-ins. WSADIE is not delivered with the integration broker because the ability to create new plug-ins is not required to develop integration components. If you have it installed, however, then you can use it to run the required System Manager and Integrated Test Environment plug-ins.

About System Manager

System Manager is the perspective in which you work with the integration components and server instances in a WebSphere Business Integration Adapters business integration system. You use System Manager primarily for the following tasks:

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