Patterns

A pattern is a reusable solution that encapsulates a tested approach to solving a common architecture, design, or deployment task in a particular context.

A pattern captures a commonly recurring solution to a problem, addressing the goals and objectives that you want to achieve. The specification of a pattern describes the problem that is being addressed, why the problem is important (the value statement), and any constraints for the solution. Patterns typically emerge from common usage and the application of a particular product or technology.

The Patterns Explorer view provides a catalog of patterns and provides detailed help. The help guides you toward a suitable pattern to solve a particular problem.

Each pattern has values known as pattern parameters. The pattern parameters that you configure depend on the particular pattern and on the options that you enable for that pattern. An example of a pattern parameter is a queue name from where messages are read. The patterns provide defaults for nearly all pattern parameters and help is provided to explain them. After you have configured the pattern parameters, you generate a pattern instance project, which is a project that contains a pattern instance configuration file. This configuration file stores the pattern parameters that you configured. Generation also creates one or more additional projects that typically artifacts that implement the pattern.

You can open the pattern instance configuration file at any time to see the values of the pattern parameters. When a pattern configuration file has been reopened, you can regenerate the projects. Regeneration deletes the generated projects and re-creates them from scratch. The pattern instance project contains an HTML summary file and a pattern instance configuration file. The summary file has a section that explains any additional tasks that might be required, such as creating queues.

In all cases, the specification of both the problem and the solution are indispensable parts of the pattern definition.

A pattern can be used to generate customized solutions to a recurring problem in an efficient way. Patterns are provided to encourage the adoption of best practice in solution design. WebSphere products provide tools in support of patterns that:

You can create resources from each pattern more than once to give you unique pattern instances, each with a different configuration. The pattern parameters that you can configure depend on the particular pattern, and also the options that you enable for that pattern.

You can use the patterns that are supplied with the workbench to create resources that are used to solve specific business problems.