Datapower SOMA Calls
The primary administration automation mechanism on IBM WebSphere DataPower appliances is the XML Management Interface. The XMI interface allows one to make SOMA (SOAP Configuration Management, assuming SOMA = SOap MAnagement) calls to perform various administration tasks. How to perform these…
Active Directory Return Codes
While working with DataPower and Active Directory (acting as the User Repository) I have often run into situation where AD returns an LDAP error code 49 plus a sub-code in the error string that is unique to AD. The sub-code can be very useful to troubleshooting, if you know what it means.
Some Simple Updates To A DataPower XSLT stylesheet.
In the last post, we saw how an XML Firewall in loopback mode could be used to return a valid SOAP response to a service message. The stylesheet used simply returned a static SOAP response that was independent of the input parameters. The stylesheet returns a response containing the sum of two…
SOAP Web Service Mockup tutorial on DataPower
It is often the case that a DataPower developer will have work to do, but does not yet have a backend Service Provider to point the DataPower service at. In general, anything beyond trivial examples will need to point at something that returns a valid response. In order to satisfy this requirement,…
DataPower Access Rental—Maybe DataPower in the Cloud?
Ever since I was first started working with IBM WebSphere DataPower I was looking around for someone that was offering access to a IBM WebSphere Datapower, I was looking around for someone that was offering access to an Internet-facing appliance that I could use for experimenting and learning. I…
RBM–Administrative Access & Security for DataPower
I generally recommend to clients that DataPower RBM (Role-Based Management) be configured to perform authentication and authorization of DataPower administrators and developers with LDAP. In particular, whatever respository serves as the central repository of user information should be used (of…
DataPower Appliances & HSMs
I’ve been in a couple of shops that have used the HSM module option of DataPower for FIPS 140-2 v2 or v3 compliance. An HSM is a Hardware Security Module. My understanding is that there is a short list of IBM customers that are using this technology. I thought collecting all the information and…
DataPower Exports and XML Files Referenced by Stylesheets
I was recently presented with an opportunity to be clever while promoting DataPower objects from a development environment to a testing environment. The WS-Proxy object’s policy rules had a Transform Action that ran a custom stylesheet. The stylesheet referenced a configuration file that was kept…
How To Rename a WS-Proxy or Multi-Protocol Gateway Object on a DataPower Appliance
Anyone who has worked with DataPower for a while has gotten into a situation where they need to rename a service object (XML Firewall, WS-Proxy, Multi-Protocol Gateway, etc). There isn’t a rename button that I have ever found. This tutorial will describe two ways of renaming such objects.
Who Owns DataPower Within An Organization?
The definition of the word ownership has varying meanings across organizations, but there is always a group that retains control of the technology. It’s typically the group that sponsored the adoption of the technology and owns day-to-day support of it. But, sometimes, the technology initiative…
DataPower and Terminal Servers…
DataPower has a serial port console that is used during initial bootstrap of the appliance, recovering from problems, and certain configuration changes. Having access to the serial console is the only feasible approach to resolving certain issues that arise with any appliance (or piece of network…
WebSphere DataPower Roles and Responsibilities…
DataPower is a weird (but, wonderful) beast. It has a tendency to break some of the traditional IT silos that develop within infrastructure groups. That can lead to a lot of friction and amusing arguments in which everyone is simply talking past one another. In this post, I want to describe the…