This section describes how to use an
Object Discovery Agent (ODA) to generate business object definitions for
application-specific business objects. An ODA is an optional component
of an
adapter. When you install a pre-defined adapter that has an ODA, its
ODA is installed automatically.
At run time, execution of an ODA involves the following components:
- Business Object Designer Express provides a graphical interface in the
form of a wizard to interact with the ODA. This wizard is called
Business Object Wizard. The purpose of Business Object
Wizard is to display a series of dialog boxes to obtain information that the
ODA needs to generate the content.
- The
ODA runtime is the intermediary component between Business Object
Wizard and the ODA. It is the ODA runtime that you start with the ODA
startup script.
- The
ODA is the component that "discovers" source nodes in the
data source and generates the content. The ODA receives information
provided in Business Object Wizard from the ODA runtime. It then sends
information (such as the generated content) to the ODA runtime, which sends it
to Business Object Wizard.
Figure 34 shows the components of the ODA runtime architecture.
Figure 34. Object Discovery Agent Architecture

To configure and run the ODA, use Business Object Wizard within
Business Object Designer Express. Business Object Wizard is a graphical
user interface to ODAs, as well as managing the discovery and
content-generation process. This section provides the following
information:
