Every now and then there arises a need to carry out-of-band information alongside the business payload but without disturbing or modifying it. Message Envelope Pattern is the Enterprise Integration Pattern label that is typically applied to solutions that address this issue. How the issue is addressed in practice varies depending on the technology in use. For JMS, for example, JMS Message Properties could be used to carry out-of-band information while the payload would be carried as the JMS payload. Web Services, typically using SOAP over HTTP, can address this requirement through the SOAP Header Extension Mechanism, whereby custom headers can be added to the SOAP Header while the payload is carried in the SOAP Body.
This document discusses construction of a WSDL that supports custom SOAP Header element and BPEL processes that are used to set and get custom header values in JBI and in eInsight. This mechanism is known to work in Java CAPS 5.x, Java CAPS 6 Classic and OpenESB / GlassFish ESB.
It is assumed that the reader is sufficiently familiar with the GlassFish ESB / OpenESB BPEL Service Engine and the SOAP/HTTP Binding Component, and / or Java CAPS Classic eInsight Business Process Manager and eDesigner IDE to be able to build projects without a step-by-step pictorial document.
The document is available here: 01_Handling_SOAP_Headers_in_BPEL_.pdf
The companion archive, containing WSDLs and projects, is available here: 01_Handling_SOAP_Headers_in_BPEL.zip
While the method discussed in this entry is still valid there is now a different treatment of the topic, using NM Properties, “GlassFish ESB v2.x – Reading and Writing arbitrary SOAP Headers in BPEL 2.0 using NMProperties“.
