Patterns. Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-Enterprise

5.4 Products used in these mappings

This chapter provides information about the products used in the intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise Product mappings.

5.4.1 IBM WebSphere Application Server

IBM WebSphere Application Server V5.0 represents a continuation of the evolution to a single, integrated, cost-effective, Web services-enabled, J2EE server foundation for applications that offers customers:

• One deployment model

• One administration point

• One programming model

• One integrated application development environment

With IBM WebSphere Application Server V5.0, IBM enables customers to expand their business opportunities and productivity through a world class infrastructure ready for e-business on demand™.

IBM WebSphere Application Server V5.0 comes in a number editions, each offering a unique combination of features geared toward different customer needs.

IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express V5.0

IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express V5.0 provides a combination of development tools and application servers in a single integrated package geared toward developing Web page-centric applications. It provides a simplified programming model that allows you to create new Web applications and to convert existing static applications to dynamic applications.

It provides a cost-effective starting point for businesses that want to have a presence on the Web. As your business needs grow, the WebSphere family provides a smooth migration path to higher-end WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Studio configurations.

More information about IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express V5.0 can be found at:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/express

IBM WebSphere Application Server base V5.0

IBM WebSphere Application Server base V5.0 provides a robust application deployment environment for single-server light production situations.

It contains a base application server that supports the full J2EE 1.3 environment. It allows a full range of enterprise integration and offers enhanced security, performance, availability, connectivity, and scalability options. Administration is done through a Web-based interface or through a scripting tool.

More information about IBM WebSphere Application Server base V5.0 can be found at:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/

IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V5.0

IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V5.0 is designed to add non-programming enhancements to the features provided in the base edition. These enhancements add scalability features, allowing you to run applications on multiple servers and on multiple physical nodes.

In addition to the features included with the base edition of WebSphere Application Server, you get:

• The Deployment Manager, which allows you to centrally manage a number of different application server instances and clustering for workload management and failover.

• The Network Dispatcher and Caching Proxy Server. These features provide the edge-of-network functions required to set up a classic DMZ in front of the application server.

• A private UDDI registry for easier deployment of internal Web services applications and a Web Services Gateway.

More information about IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V5.0 can be found at:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/was/network/

IBM WebSphere Application Server Enterprise V5.0

IBM WebSphere Application Server Enterprise V5.0 provides all the features in IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V5.0, plus programming model extensions for sophisticated application designs.

It offers additional capabilities such as advanced application adapters, application workflow composition and choreography, extended messaging, dynamic rules-based application adaptability, internationalization, and asynchronous processing.

WebSphere MQ is bundled with the package (except on z/OS®).

More information about IBM WebSphere Application Server Enterprise V5.0 can be found at:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/enterprise/

5.4.2 IBM WebSphere MQ

IBM WebSphere MQ provides assured once-only delivery of messages across more than 35 industry platforms using a variety of communications protocols.

The transportation of message data through a network is made possible through the use of a network of WebSphere MQ queue managers. Each queue manager hosts local queues that are containers used to store messages. Through remote queue definitions and message channels, data can be transported to its destination queue manager.

To use the services of a WebSphere MQ transport layer, an application must make a connection to a WebSphere MQ queue manager, the services of which will enable it to receive (get) messages from local queues, or send (put) messages to any queue on any queue manager. The application's connection may be made directly (where the queue manager runs locally to the application) or as a client to a queue manager that is accessible over a network.

Dynamic workload distribution is another important feature of WebSphere MQ. This feature shares the workload among a group of queue managers that are part of the same cluster. This allows WebSphere MQ to automatically balance the workload across available resources, and provide hot standby capabilities if a system component fails. This is a critical feature for companies that need to maintain round-the-clock availability.

WebSphere MQ supports a variety of application programming interfaces (including MQI, AMI, and JMS), which provide support for several programming languages as well as point-to-point and publish/subscribe communication models. In addition to support for application programming, WebSphere MQ provides a number of connectors and gateways to a variety of other products, such as Microsoft® Exchange, Lotus® Domino®, SAP/R3, CICS®, and IMS™, to name just a few.

More information can be found at the IBM WebSphere MQ Web site:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/ts/mqseries

5.4.3 WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker

WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.0 extends the messaging capabilities of WebSphere MQ by adding message routing, transformation, and publish/subscribe features. Message Broker provides a runtime environment that executes message-flows. These message-flows consist of a graph of nodes that represent the processing needed for integrating applications. They can be designed to perform a wide variety of functions, including these:

• Routing of messages to zero or more destinations based on the contents of the message or message header (both one-to-many and many-to-one messaging topologies are supported).

• Transformation of messages into different formats so that diverse applications can exchange messages that each of them can understand.

• Enrichment of the message content en route (for example, by using a database lookup performed by the message broker).

• Storing information extracted from messages en route to a database (using the message broker to perform this).

• Publishing messages and using topic- or content-based criteria for subscribers to select which messages to receive.

• Interfacing with other connectivity mechanisms such as MQSeries Everyplace®.

• Extending the base function of WebSphere MQ Message Broker with plug-in nodes in Java and C/C++ (which can be developed by installations as well as by IBM and ISVs).

• Processing message content in a number of message domains, including the XML domain which handles self-defining (or generic) XML messages, the Message Repository Manager (MRM) which handles predefined message sets, and unstructured data (BLOB domain).

WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker also provides the following features:

• Scalability options in the form of message-flow instances and execution-groups.

• Simplified integration of existing applications with Web services through the transformation and routing of SOAP messages, as well as logging of Web services transactions.

• Mediation between Web services and other integration models as both a service requester and a service provider.

• Compliance with standards such as Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP).

• Integrated WebSphere MQ transports for enterprise, mobile, real-time, multicast, and telemetry end points.

• Eclipse-based Message Brokers Toolkit for WebSphere Studio.

• Standards-based metadata including XML schema and WSDL.

More information about IBM WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.0 can be found at:

• http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wbimessagebroker