5.0 Case Study 1: Single User Devices (such as PDA, laptop, desktop)

Added by Bart Jacob | Edited by IBM contributor

Gill Spencer on November 6, 2008 | Version 17

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5.0 Case Study 1: Single User Devices (such as PDA, laptop, desktop)

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This is work in progress. Please check back soon for actual content.

Neeraj, Sujith and Vijay

Expected sub-sections to be linked from this page:

Strengths - intra/interprocess communications on device/desktop and integration with enterprise
Micro broker as a simple messaging provider connecting to ESB. A secure and non-secure JMS/ MQTT client communicating with micro broker that is bridged to a WebSphere MQ/WESB
Business Scenario - suggest field force enablement (Gill)
Configuration/Setup in a lab enviroment (Neeraj)
Incorporate use in Rich Client App and also headless mode.
Coding (Neeraj)
Deployment (Headless deployment also) / Testing the business scenario

5.1 Case Study: Business Scenario

This chapter covers the use of the micro broker for inter- and intra-process communications on the device or desktop and also for integration with the enterprise.
The focus is on the use of the micro broker in Field Force Automation (FFA) and Sales Force Automation (SFA) scenarios, where a worker may use a combination of device and desktop applications to complete work tasks.

Typical industries where the micro broker is implemented for Field Force Automation are the Industrial sector for performing maintenance tasks and automating operations, the Retail industry for performing tasks such as price lookups and stock transfers, and Healthcare for access to patient records. Sales Force Automation scenarios are commonly seen in industries such as the Financial sector, Utilities and Communications.

In these scenarios, the worker will often use a mobile device such as a PDA or smart phone in a mixed online and offline mode, with assured and secure message delivery to/from the enterprise. A desktop application implemented with Lotus Expeditor is frequently used to aid in reporting, supervision and monitoring.

Enabling mobile work patterns by using the micro broker can significantly improve worker productivity and customer service. Work order management can be extended to a mobile worker by assigning work orders remotely and dynamically to workers; in this way work orders can be assigned to the right worker at the right time. Process steps in the work order can guide a worker efficiently and correctly through a task. A mobile worker is also able to have the latest product or customer information instantly available, and much manual paperwork is removed along with unnecessary returns to the office.
At the same time, the status of mobile workers and work orders is immediately visible in the enterprise, and updates to customer or product records are instantly available.

The micro broker enables a Services Oriented Architecture to be extended beyond the data center to the edge of the network through providing different ways of integrating with enterprise messaging systems.

This Case Study will describe five typical use cases that are commonly implemented in FFA / SFA scenarios:

Use case 1: Inter- and Intra-process communications – micro broker on device enabling collaboration of applications written in different languages (through C and Java MQtt clients) - use of the micro broker for inter-process communications. For example, an application running outside the Expeditor Client for devices may communicate with an application running inside Expeditor Client for devices. Equally, this scenario may be required on a desktop client.

Use case 2: Work order retrieval – retrieval of work orders using messaging – WAS SI Bus (WPS) connectivity – headless micro broker on desktop. Connecting a device to WESB/WPS is not possible using the Micro broker bridge with MQtt connection; to connect to the SI Bus of WAS, the bridge must be configured with the JNDIConnectionDefinition object. The JNDIConnectionDefinition provides connectivity to a JMS provider using JNDI administered objects. The SI Bus client software is required by the Microbroker bridge to make this connection. As the SI Bus client software requires a full J2SE VM, it is not possible for this type of connection to be made with the micro broker bridge on a device. Instead, a JMS MQtt client on the device can be configured to connect to a remote Micro broker with bridge configured. The remote Microbroker can run in a custom Expeditor platform configured for headless mode.

Use case 3: Notification mechanism – notification of updates –WMB <-> headless Micro broker on desktop

Use case 4: Product and customer updates – retrieval of customer / product data – MqttConnection <-> WMB - integration with external supplier systems (supply chain business partners) , product information systems. Message transformation in order to provide messages suitable for constrained environment of devices.

Use case 5: Asynchronous secure connectivity – offline task completion, and secure transmission of data – JMS buffered client with security to send work order status / results to enterprise

Use case 6: Deployment - deployment of Expeditor client for devices and desktop - NCI; deployment/update of applications to device and desktop - Client Management