Basic scheduling on IBM Datapower

Performing scheduled actions is not the primary architectural purpose of the Datapower SOA Appliances, but sometimes it might come in handy to be able to perform a certain ‘batch’ task on a scheduled timing.

As an example we take the situation at one of our customers, where a Datapower box is used as a proxy to add a security layer to the calls going to an external party.

Part of this security layer is the addition of a secure code, that must be retrieved with a call to a security server. This code stays typically the same for a long time and is the same for all calls going through the proxy.

To avoid making a call to the security server for each call that goes through the proxy, a scheduler was created that picks up the secure code every 60 seconds and stores the code in a global Datapower variable. The normal proxy calls simply use the value of this global variable to get the secure code.

- First thing we need for a scheduler is the action that will be executed. This action is defined in a processing rule with all the necessary processing actions in it.

- The scheduling itself should be done through an xml manager. On the page of your xml manager, go to the tab ‘Scheduled Processing Policy Rule’ and simply add a new rule with your selected processing rule and the interval in seconds.

As you see, it’s a very easy but limited (only fixed seconds intervals) feature on the Datapower appliance. In a few minutes you can create a simple scheduler, which is often just what you need.

When you need a more advanced scheduling process, you should consider using cron on unix or the task scheduler on windows and send a request to the service on Datapower that you want to schedule.

Author: Tim