Web Service Data Collector

The Web Service Data Collector is installed automatically with Optimize. Web services provide an interface to Optimize through which client programs can send operational data about applications or equipment in your enterprise (such as databases, printers, or disk drives), process data (such as the start and end time of each step in process instances), or business data (such as customers, order quantities, and revenues). Optimize then displays the data in the form of system KPI instances for operational data or business KPI instances for business process data.

Tip:
You can use Software AG Designer to generate the client program and the SOAP messages for the Web Service Data Collector automatically. For details, see the “Working with Web Services” section of the webMethods Service Development Help.

Depending on the size of your enterprise, you can distribute the load by deploying Web services to systems that host applications and processes you want to monitor. Web services gather the summarized data and send them to the Analytic Engine, which in turn stores the data in the database and displays it in the My webMethods user interface. In addition, the Analytic Engine runs algorithms on the data to produce a variety of diagnoses. These diagnoses enable Optimize to automatically and continually compare summarized data with a baseline of historical behavior and indicate when types of data are deviating from that baseline.

Note:
You can provide your own definitions of what types of data are out of compliance by defining rules. For more information about defining rules, see Chapter 5 “Defining Rules” in webMethods Optimize User’s Guide.

If you have webMethods Integration Server and Designer, you can build Integration Server services that use Web services to gather data for Optimize. For example, you could do any of the following:

You can use Integration Server services to gather data about webMethods components. Suppose you are using webMethods Broker (deprecated). You could create an Integration Server service that uses Web services to create system KPI instances for types of data in certain Broker documents, listens for those Broker documents, gets the appropriate field values from the documents, and uses Web services to push the data to the created system KPI instances in Optimize. For more information, see Configuring and Using the Web Service Data Collector.

You can use webMethods adapters with Integration Server services to gather data about resources in your enterprise. Suppose your enterprise includes an SAP system and you use the webMethods SAP Adapter to connect that resource to your webMethods components. You could create an Integration Server service that uses Web services to create system KPI instances for types of data relating to the SAP system, uses the SAP Adapter to query the SAP system for the data at regular intervals, and uses Web services to push the data to the created system KPI instances in Optimize.

In Optimize for Process, you can use Web services to gather data about business processes in your enterprise. Suppose you want to monitor a business process. You would use Web services to push data about each process instance to Optimize as the process instance executes. Typically, you would push data about the start and end of each step in the process instance and about process run-time events that might indicate that an error or a warning occurred during process execution. You could obtain that data from a log file, from a database, or from the business process code itself.

Also in Optimize for Process, you can use Web services to gather data about your enterprise's business transactions. If you are monitoring business data, you would use Web services to push data about each transaction instance to Optimize as the instance executes. Typically, you would push data about customers, products, order quantities, and revenue.