Exposing Several Services as a Single Service

This scenario is commonly referred to as Service Chaining. Here, several services are integrated based on some business logic and exposed as a single aggregated service. 

Let's get started!

Connecting to the back-end services

Let's create HTTP endpoints representing the back-end services to which you need to connect. These services process information related to channelling fees and payment settlements.

1. Right click SampleServices in the Project Explorer and navigate to New -> Endpoint. Ensure Create a New Endpoint is selected and click Next.

2. Fill in the following information:

   Field	Value
   Endpoint Name	ChannelingFeeEP
   Endpoint Type	HTTP Endpoint
   URI Template	http://localhost:9090/{uri.var.hospital}/categories/appointments/{uri.var.appointment_id}/fee
   Method	GET
   Static Endpoint	Select this option because we are going to use this endpoint in this ESB Config project only and will not reuse it in other projects.
   Save Endpoint in	SampleServices

3. Click Finish.

   

4. Create another endpoint for the Settle Payment service and fill in the information as in the following table: 

   Field	Value
   Endpoint Name	SettlePaymentEP
   Endpoint Type	HTTP Endpoint
   URI Template	http://localhost:9090/healthcare/payments
   Method	POST
   Static Endpoint	Select this option because we are going to use this endpoint in this ESB Config project only and will not re-use it in other projects.
   Save Endpoint in	SampleServices

5. Click Finish.

   

You have now created the additional endpoints that are required for this tutorial. 

Creating the deployable artifacts

1. In WSO2 Integration Studio, add a Property mediator just after the Get Hospital Property mediator in the In sequence of the API resource. This is used for retrieving and storing the card number that is sent in the request payload.

    
   

   With the Property mediator selected, access the Properties tab and fill in the information as in the following table:

   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	card_number
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select Expression
   Value Expression	json-eval($.cardNo)
   Description	Get Card Number

   For detailed instructions on adding a Property mediator, see Mediating requests to the back-end service.

2. Go to the first case box of the Switch mediator. Add a Property mediator just after the Log mediator to store the uri.var.hospital variable value that will be used when sending requests to ChannelingFeeEP.
    
   

   With the Property mediator selected, access the Properties tab and fill in the information as in the following table:

   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	uri.var.hospital
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select LITERAL
   Property Data Type	Select STRING
   Value	grandoaks
   Description	Set Hospital Variable

3. Similarly, add Property mediators in the other two case boxes in the Switch mediator. Change only the Value field as follows:
   • Case 2: clemency
   • Case 3: pinevalley
     

4. Delete the Send mediator by right-clicking the mediator and selecting Delete from Model. Replace this with a Call mediator from the Mediators palette and add GrandOakEP from the Defined Endpoints palette to the empty box adjoining the Call mediator. 
   
   Replace the Send mediators in the following two case boxes as well and add ClemencyEP and PineValleyEP to the respective boxes adjoining the Call mediators.
   

   Replacing with a Call mediator allows us to define other service invocations following this mediator.

   Let's use Property mediators to retrieve and store the values that you receive as responses from GrandOakEP, ClemencyEP, or PineValleyEP.

5. Next to the Switch mediator, add a Property mediator to retrieve and store the value sent as appointmentNumber.

    
   

   With the Property mediator selected, access the Properties tab and fill in the information as in the following table:

   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	uri.var.appointment_id (This value is used when invoking ChannelingFeeEP)
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select EXPRESSION
   Value Expression	json-eval($.appointmentNumber)
   Description	Get Appointment Number

   You derive the Value Expression in the above table from the following response that is received from GrandOakEP, ClemencyEP, or PineValleyEP:

   {"appointmentNumber":1,   "doctor":
           {"name":"thomas collins",
            "hospital":"grand oak community hospital",
            "category":"surgery","availability":"9.00 a.m - 11.00 a.m",
            "fee":7000.0},
      "patient":
          {"name":"John Doe",
           "dob":"1990-03-19",
           "ssn":"234-23-525",
           "address":"California",
           "phone":"8770586755",
           "email":"johndoe@gmail.com"},
      "fee":7000.0,
      "confirmed":false}

6. Similarly, add two more Property mediators as follows. They retrieve and store the doctor details and patient details respectively from the response that is received from GrandOakEP, ClemencyEP, or PineValleyEP.

   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	doctor_details
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select EXPRESSION
   Value Expression	json-eval($.doctor)
   Description	Get Doctor Details
   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	patient_details
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select EXPRESSION
   Value Expression	json-eval($.patient)
   Description	Get Patient Details

   

7. Add a Call mediator and add ChannelingFeeEP from Defined Endpoints palette to the empty box adjoining the Call mediator. 

8. Add a Property mediator adjoining the Call mediator box to retrieve and store the value sent as actualFee. Access the Property tab of the mediator and fill in the information as in the following table:

   Field	Value
   Property Name	Select New Property
   New Property Name	actual_fee (This value is used when invoking SettlePaymentEP )
   Property Action	Select set
   Value Type	Select EXPRESSION
   Value Expression	json-eval($.actualFee)
   Description	Get Actual Fee

   

   You derive the Value Expression in the above table from the following response that is received from ChannelingFeeEP:

   {"patientName":" John Doe ", 
    "doctorName":"thomas collins", 
    "actualFee":"7000.0"}

   Let's use the PayloadFactory mediator to construct the following message payload for the request sent to SettlePaymentEP. 

   {"appointmentNumber":2,
   	"doctor":{
   		"name":"thomas collins",
   		"hospital":"grand oak community hospital",
   		"category":"surgery",
   		"availability":"9.00 a.m - 11.00 a.m",
   		"Fee":7000.0
   	},
   	"patient":{
   		"name":"John Doe",
   		"Dob":"1990-03-19",
   		"ssn":"234-23-525",
   		"address":"California",
   		"phone":"8770586755",
   		"email":"johndoe@gmail.com"
   	},
   	"fee":7000.0,
   	"Confirmed":false,
       "card_number":"1234567890"
   }

9. Add a PayloadFactory mediator next to the Property mediator, from the mediators palette to construct the above message payload. 

    
   

   With the PayloadFactory mediator selected, access the Properties tab of the mediator and fill in the information as in the following table:

   Field	Value	Description
   Payload Format	Select Inline	-
   Media Type	Select json	-
   Payload	{ "appointmentNumber":$1, "doctor":$2, "patient":$3, "fee":$4, "confirmed":"false", "card_number":"$5" }	The message payload to send with the request to SettlePaymentEP. In this payload, $1, $2, $3, $4, and $5 indicate variables.

   We will look at adding the value for the Args field in the following steps.

   To avoid getting an error message, first select the Media Type before providing the Payload.

10. To add Args values for the PayloadFactory mediator, click Add (+) in the Args field and enter the information given below. It provides the argument that defines the actual value of the first variable that is used in the format definition (in the previous step).

    Field	Value	Description
    Type	Select Expression	-
    Value	$ctx:uri.var.appointment_id	The value for the first variable ($1) in the message payload format.
    Evaluator	Select xml	Indicates that the expression provided is in XML.

    The $ctx method is similar to using the get-property method. This method checks in the message context. For more details on using this method, refer the documentation.

11. Similarly, click Add and add more arguments to define the other variables that are used in the message payload format definition. Use the following as the Value for each of them: 

    $ctx:doctor_details
$ctx:patient_details
$ctx:actual_fee
$ctx:card_number
    

12. Add a Call mediator and add SettlePaymentEP from the Defined Endpoints palette to the empty box adjoining the Call mediator.
13. Add a Respond mediator to send the response to the client. 
    You should now have a completed configuration that looks like this:
    
14. Save the updated REST API configuration.

Packaging the artifacts

Package the artifacts you created above in the SampleServicesCompositeApplication project: 

1. Open the pom.xml file of the SampleServicesCompositeApplication project, which is already included in the project explorer.

2. Select the artifact that needs to be included into the CAR file.
   

Starting the ESB profile and deploying the artifacts

If you have already added the ESB profile server and deployed SampleServicesCompositeApplication (in a previous tutorial):

1. Go to the Servers tab and click  to start the server. 
   
2. Right-click SampleServicesCompositeApplication and click Redeploy as shown below.
   

The server Console will indicate that the CApp has been redeployed successfully.

Starting the back-end service

Download and start the back-end service that will process appointment requests:

1. Download the JAR file of the back-end service.

2. Open a terminal and navigate to the location where your saved the back-end service.

3. Execute the following command to start the service:
   

   java -jar Hospital-Service-JDK11-2.0.0.jar

The Healthcare service is now active and you can start sending requests to the service.

Sending requests to the ESB

1. Create a JSON file named request.json with the following request payload.

   {
   "name": "John Doe",
   "dob": "1940-03-19",
   "ssn": "234-23-525",
   "address": "California",
   "phone": "8770586755",
   "email": "johndoe@gmail.com",
   "doctor": "thomas collins",
   "hospital": "grand oak community hospital",
   "cardNo": "7844481124110331",
   "appointment_date": "2025-04-02"
   }

2. Open a command line terminal and execute the following command from the location where the request.json file was saved:

   curl -v -X POST --data @request.json  http://localhost:8280/healthcare/categories/surgery/reserve  --header "Content-Type:application/json"

   This is derived from the URI-Template defined when creating the API resource.

   http://<host>:<port>/categories/{category}/reserve

   You will see the response as follows:

   {  
      "appointmentNo":1,
      "doctorName":"thomas collins",
      "patient":"John Doe",
      "actualFee":7000.0,
      "discount":20,
      "discounted":5600.0,
      "paymentID":"480fead2-e592-4791-941a-690ad1363802",
      "status":"Settled"
   }

You have now explored how the ESB profile of WSO2 EI can do service chaining using the Call mediator and transform message payloads from one format to another using the PayloadFactory mediator.