Configuring IBM Business Automation Workflow with an existing external Content Platform Engine
You can configure IBM® Business Automation Workflow to work with an existing external Content Platform Engine, also called an external Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system.
Restriction: IBM Business Automation
Workflow Enterprise Service Bus does not include
an embedded Content Platform Engine and
you cannot configure a Content Platform Engine for Enterprise Service
Bus.
Before you begin
There are two ways of configuring Business Automation Workflow to work with an existing
external ECM system.
- You can configure your Business Automation Workflow deployment environment to use an empty object store in an external IBM FileNet® Content Manager installation. This configuration is useful if you set up a new Business Automation Workflow deployment environment. You cannot configure your Business Automation Workflow deployment environment to use an empty object store in an external IBM Content Manager installation immediately. Follow the instructions in this set of steps.
- You can configure your Business Automation Workflow deployment environment to reassign the BPM content store to the domain of an existing FileNet Content Manager installation. This configuration is useful if you already have a Business Automation Workflow deployment environment set up. For instructions, see Reassigning the BPM document store.
- When you configure separate IBM Business Automation Workflow environments with an existing Content Platform Engine, it is possible to configure separate IBM Business Automation Workflow configurations with a single FileNet P8 domain. The requirement is for all of the separate IBM Business Automation Workflow configurations to be on the same product version. For example, all IBM Business Automation Workflow configurations are 24.0.0.0 or V21.0.2. Each separate environment has its own set of unique object stores. Sharing of object stores across the different IBM Business Automation Workflow configurations is not allowed. Configuring two separate FileNet P8 domains on the same WebSphere® Application Server installation such that each FileNet P8 domain, services a different version of Business Automation Workflow is also not supported.
- To use the same single FileNet P8 domain, all IBM Business Automation
Workflow configurations must
not only be on the same product version, but they must all have either development profiles
(Workflow Center) or production profiles (Workflow Server) but not a mix of both. Note: If all of the IBM Business Automation Workflow configurations are not on the same product version, the gateway service installation might fail as there are dependencies from the Gateway services.
- You cannot use the same Design and target object stores (DOS & TOS) for both Workflow Center (development) and Workflow Server (production). You have to create new ones specifically for the production profile. Also, when using a FileNet P8 domain for multiple IBM Business Automation Workflow deployment environments, ensure that they all have either development profiles (Workflow Center) or production profiles (Workflow Server), but not a mix of both.
These prerequisites are necessary to configure IBM Business Automation Workflow with an existing external Content Platform Engine.
- Only standard and cluster ECM environments are supported. Single server or multiple server (noncluster) network deployment ECM environments are not supported.
- The existing external Content Platform Engine must be configured on a profile that is enabled for Java 8. Otherwise, the Case configuration tool fails.
- On Content Platform Engine, you must have a domain that is already set up. There might be multiple object-stores that are already set up. When you configure the Content Platform Engine, you will find a three-to-three correlation between the IBM Business Automation Workflow server and the FileNet Content Manager object store. The three object stores are IBM Business Automation Workflow document store (which must be a new, empty object store), design object store, and target object store.
- As an application server, only WebSphere Application Server is supported. In addition, if you are using a version earlier than V18.0.0.2, the WebSphere Application Server used by IBM Business Automation Workflow and the WebSphere Application Server used by the FileNet Content Manager must have the same version.
- The same Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) user repository must be used by both IBM Business Automation Workflow and FileNet Content Manager.
- The same configuration properties for the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) must be
used by both IBM Business Automation Workflow
and FileNet Content
Manager.
For example, the user and group name attributes:
- Business Automation Workflow - user-full-name-prop and group-name-prop
- Content Platform Engine - userShortNameAttribute and GroupNameAttribute
- When you create the WebSphere Application Server profile for the external Content Platform Engine, you must use a hostname with a domain name suffix, for example MyDmgrHost.my_domain.com.
- Business Automation Workflow and Content Platform Engine must have the same registry for achieving single-sign on (SSO). For example, Business Automation Workflow and Content Platform Engine both might have federated repositories such as the Virtual Member Manager (VMM) repositories. A combination of Business Automation Workflow with VMM and Content Platform Engine with a stand-alone LDAP is not supported by IBM WebSphere Application Server. If you use shared LDAP repositories, they must be added to the WebSphere federated repositories on both the Content Platform Engine and IBM Business Automation Workflow.
About this task
Note: You cannot reverse this configuration and return to using the IBM Business Automation Workflow embedded Content Platform Engine. After you configure, you must always use the
external Content Platform Engine.
Back up your system configuration and databases before you begin this configuration. This backup means you can roll back your configuration if needed. See Backing up and restoring administrative configuration files.