WebSphere MQ

Technical detail

Reliable transport for Web services

Web services provide a standards-based mechanism for re-useable software components to interact over networks.

SOAP messages between Web services are typically transported over HTTP. HTTP is the synchronous, request-response protocol commonally used by Web browsers for accessing the Internet.

WebSphere MQ can provide a more reliable, transactional transport than HTTP over which SOAP messages can be exchanged.

Download book on WebSphere MQ as a transport for SOAP .

Like HTTP, WebSphere MQ provides a transport layer for SOAP messages to flow across. The following table highlights the advantages of using WebSphere MQ.

Web services transport

Feature	Benefit	HTTP	WebSphere MQ
Reliable message delivery (Once-and-once only)	Helps preserve data integrity. Messages not lost or duplicated by transport.	No	Yes
Asynchronous communication	Web services need not be available or active in order for requests and responses to be exchanged. Service requestors can do useful work whilst waiting for replies.	No	Yes
High availability, resilience and workload distribution	Reliable, enterprise-class transport.	No	Yes
Monitoring, Auditing and Logging	Know what when where and to whom	No	Yes
Flexible messaging	Building and maintaining a dynamic data distribution model can be simplified with publish-subscribe messaging	No	Yes
Access to rich portfolio of Adapters	Connectivity to existing applications is straightforward and easy.	No	Yes
Availability of powerful message brokers	Easy path to powerful messaging transformation services.	No	Yes