Migrating message flow projects

When you import resources into an IBM® Integration Toolkit Version 10.0 workspace, any message flow projects are converted automatically to integration projects.

Before you begin

Ensure that you imported resources from a previous version of WebSphere® Message Broker, as described in Importing resources from previous versions.

About this task

You cannot create a message flow project in IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0. You might want to continue to use message flow projects if you are working in a team environment, for example.

After your message flow projects are converted to integration projects, the message flows behave in the same way as before. However, if your message flow project contains schema, adapter components, WSDL files, IDL files, or SCA definitions, you might see errors after you migrate your project to IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0.

Quick fixes are available for these errors. These resources have no effect in a message flow project; you can include them in a Message flow project for reference only. But when you include the resources in an application or library, the resources become visible to other applications and libraries. This visibility can affect the resolution of those resources in the workspace. For example, a Message flow project might contain an XSD file that defines an element that is named element1, and a message set also contains an XSD file that defines an element that is named element1. In previous versions of WebSphere Message Broker, this duplication does not cause a problem because the element in the Message flow project is not used for name resolution. However, after migration to IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, the presence of two elements that are named element1 causes an error.

An error is also displayed if you import a BAR file with resources from a previous version, and you then choose to refactor those resources to applications and libraries. If you try to recompile a BAR file after the resources are migrated to applications and libraries, you see an error message similar to the following example:

TotalPurchaseOrderFlow.msgflow belongs in an application or library and should be deployed within that container and not independently.
Create a new BAR file and select the application or library in the Prepare tab of the BAR editor, then select Build and Save.
To deploy the resource separately from the application or library, it must be moved into a Message Broker project.

Therefore, you cannot rebuild the BAR file but you can view the contents to see, for example, your original resources and how they were refactored.

What to do next

Decide how you want to organize your migrated resources. Applications are typically used to contain all the resources that are required for a particular solution. Libraries are typically used to contain resources that you might want to reuse. So you might decide to store your main message flow in an application, and store your reusable resources in a library. For detailed instructions to convert your resources, see Converting existing projects to applications and libraries.