Getting Started with App Connect Enterprise V11.0 on MacOS

App Connect Enterprise (ACE) V11.0 was announced in Jan 30, 2018. This article shows you how to get started in setting up a development environment on MacOS.

Prerequisites

(1) Download and install Docker Community Edition (CE) for MacOS.

(2) Download and install curl

(3) Optional tool required are jq to format json and xmllint to format XML.

Download and install the ACE Developer Toolkit

(1) Download the ACE Toolkit for the link here. For MacOS, download the file
ACE-MAC-DEVELOPER.pkg (1.1 GB)

(2) After you have downloaded the package, double click to start the installation.

Install and run ACE on Docker

Because the MacOS edition does not come with an ACE Integration Server, you need to use the ACE Docker edition.

(1) Run the following to pull the ACE v11.

docker pull ibmcom/ace

(2) Check if the images is downloaded

$ docker images
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
ibmcom/ace 11.0.0.0 e2b6a1ec3089 3 months ago 1.07GB
ibmcom/ace latest e2b6a1ec3089 3 months ago 1.07

(3) Run the ACE container.

$ docker run --name myAce -e LICENSE=accept -P ibmcom/ace:11.0.0.0

(4) Check if the ACE container is running

$ docker ps

You will see the following:

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                                              NAMES
da06bac4ba9b        ibmcom/ace:latest   "/bin/bash -c '/usr/…"   9 hours ago         Up 9 hours          0.0.0.0:32769->7600/tcp, 0.0.0.0:32768->7800/tcp   myAce

• The name of the container is called myAce.
• There are two ports mapped, 7600 is mapped to 32769 of the host machine — which is used for administration. 7800 is mapped to 32768 of the host machine is used for to handle HTTP traffic.

Configure ACE Toolkit to connect to the Integration Server

(1) Go to the Application in the Finder Window and launch the ACE Toolkit.

Icon in the MacOS Application tab

(2) Navigate to the Integration Explorer window on the bottom left. Right click on Integration Servers > Connect to an Integration Server.

(3) Enter the following values and click Finish.

Menu to specify connection information to remote Integration Server

You should see the server added in the display.

Integration Explorer Window in the ACE Developer Toolkit

(4) Now, use the browser to go to the ACE Web Management Console. The URL is http://localhost:32769.

ACE Web Management Console

Deploy a sample and test

(1) In the ACE Toolkit, navigate to Help > Tutorials Gallery. Select Transformation using ESQL in a message flow and click Start Tutorial.

Tutorial Gallery in the ACE Developer Toolkit

(3) On the Create tab, click Import.

Step by Step guide of the Tutorial

(4) A project called Transformation_ESQL is added to your Application Development workspace.

Application Development workspace window

(5) Drag and drop the Transformation_ESQL.bar file to the Integration Server you have added just now. You should see the following artifact added and running on the Integration Server.

Integration Explorer Window with BAR file deployed

(6) Copy the content of file input.xml that contains the test data into a working folder where you run your test.

(7) Run the curl command to test.

curl -X POST http://localhost:32768/Transformation_ESQL -d @./input.xml | xmllint --format -

You should see the following results.

% Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  2176  100   771  100  1405   1970   3591 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  3593
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<SaleEnvelope>
  <SaleList>
    <Statement Type="Monthly" Style="Full">
      <Customer>
        <Initials>KA</Initials>
        <Name>Braithwaite</Name>
        <Balance>00.50</Balance>
      </Customer>
      <Purchases>
        <Article>
          <Desc>Twister</Desc>
          <Cost>0.480</Cost>
          <Qty>01</Qty>
        </Article>
        <Article>
          <Desc>The Times Newspaper</Desc>
          <Cost>0.320</Cost>
          <Qty>01</Qty>
        </Article>
      </Purchases>
      <Amount Currency="Sterling">0.320</Amount>
    </Statement>
    <Statement Type="Monthly" Style="Full">
      <Customer>
        <Initials>TJ</Initials>
        <Name>Dunnwin</Name>
        <Balance>81.84</Balance>
      </Customer>
      <Purchases>
        <Article>
          <Desc>The Origin of Species</Desc>
          <Cost>35.744</Cost>
          <Qty>02</Qty>
        </Article>
        <Article>
          <Desc>Microscope</Desc>
          <Cost>57.920</Cost>
          <Qty>01</Qty>
        </Article>
      </Purchases>
      <Amount Currency="Euros">57.920</Amount>
    </Statement>
  </SaleList>
</SaleEnvelope>

References:

https://hub.docker.com/r/ibmcom/ace/

IBM Products

Disclaimer:

All opinions expressed here are very much my own and not of IBM. All codes/scripts/artifacts are provided as-is with no support unless otherwise stated.