Basic functions of OpenLinks(R)
Creating an XML data interface basically involves placing a layer between every system and the representation of its data and the end-point (target system). When the OpenLinks Web Service Engine processes a transaction, it first retrieves data from the source system in XML format. Next, it runs a transformation process, converting the source system’s XML format to a structure for the target system, this is performed using a OpenLinks Service Configuration File (this is also producted in XML format). Open Links then directly writes to the target system.
The OpenLinks XML mapping layer greatly reduces new development and maintenance. If the source system needs to send its data to a new endpoint, the database administrator only needs to create a new OpenLinks Service Configuration File to develop the data mapping and validation rules to perform the transformation to the end-point. If the source format changes, only the mapping engine has to be changed.
The OpenLinks Engine does a great job of defining a map between target database schema and an XML web service and adding additional system support for scheduling, monitoring, logging and data validation. For example, it is now safe and easy to create web services from an ERP System such as Oracle or SAP to create a direct flow of product data to an ecommerce web application.
Process flow
1. XML Output from the Source Database »
2. OpenLinks Service Configuration File describes how to map Source Database XML Output to the end-point »
3. OpenLinks Scheduler manages time-point to execute XML Output from Source Database »
4. OpenLinks Job Instance processing writes to end-point (target system) »
5. Logging reports on success/failure of Job Instance Processing .
Below we can see a exmple Open Links Service Configuration File, this exmple shows a data import of product data:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<openlinks>
<incomingfeed>
<feedsource>file:E:\\stores\\HEN\\_tmp\\XML\\ProductLevel.xml</feedsource>
<element rootpath="/product">
<table>elements_products</table>
<keymapping validator="maxlength:10">
<xpath>/product/code</xpath>
<column>ATTR_ModelNumber</column>
</keymapping>
<mapping validator="maxlength:100">
<xpath>/product/title</xpath>
<column>ATTR_Headline</column>
</mapping>
<mapping>
<xpath>/product/description/text()</xpath>
<column>ATTR_description</column>
</mapping>
<mapping>
<xpath>/product/unit</xpath>
<column>ATTR_Unit</column>
</mapping>
<mapping>
<xpath>/product/image</xpath>
<column>ATTR_Image</column>
</mapping>
</element>
</incomingfeed>
</openlinks>
This line indicates the file location for the Source data XML to be executed.
this section of code show how we set the destination database table name this line indicates where to get the source XML.
This section of code shows how an item in the source XML data file is mapped to a data item in the end-point (in this case another database).
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