WebSphere Message Broker adds customer-requested connectivity features

From CCR2: The voice of System z software for more than 30 years

Vol 6, Issue 8 - 03 Sep 2008

Anthony O’Dowd Anthony O’Dowd, IBM WebSphere Message Broker architect, was interviewed for this feature.

Following customer input sparked by new capabilities in the November 2007 release of IBM WebSphere Message Broker for z/OS version 6.1, Anthony O’Dowd reveals another set of features to increase your connectivity choices and convenience.

Fix pack adds many customer-requested features

In response to the November 2007 release of IBM WebSphere Message Broker version 6.1 and ensuing customer feedback, IBM has added another set of features and expects to deliver more via easy-to-install fix packs between major updates.

The continual-improvement approach adopted by the WebSphere Message Broker development team means you won’t have to take a full upgrade path to get the latest Message Broker technology. New features such as Representational State Transfer (REST) support, more SOAP capability, message flow transparency to enable audit and monitoring, integration with IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA, and other customer-requested enhancements, are available as part of IBM WebSphere Message Broker Fix Pack V6.1.0.2 for z/OS and distributed platforms released in May.

RESTful connectivity

Representational State Transfer (REST), a Web 2.0 technology, has evolved to simplify XML data exchange between IT systems and end-user applications. Many enterprise applications – such as SAP, CICS, Oracle and IBM WebSphere MQ – have recently added support for REST, which uses hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) to eliminate client software stacks and enable flexible, lightweight connectivity for a wide range of devices.
WebSphere Message Broker V6.1.0.2 adds full REST support to allow you to pass Web service request messages between lightweight clients and enterprise applications using the broker as an intermediary. Moreover, the broker can also act as a REST client itself, allowing you to hook REST services into your existing message flows.

New REST capabilities in WebSphere Message Broker V6.1.0.2 include:

POST, PUT, GET, and DELETE HTTP verbs/methods are fully understood
Support for inbound and outbound scenarios
Both static, design-time and dynamic, run-time REST invocations
Flexible URL definition to allow message flows to handle multiple request types.

Stronger SOAP

SOAP, the foundation of XML-based Web services, remains a popular connectivity choice and continues to evolve. WebSphere Message Broker V6.1.0.2 builds upon Web Services Security (WS-Security) and WS-Addressing support added in V6.1, as well as other SOAP features. New capabilities in this Message Broker Fix Pack include:

WS-Security X509 asymmetric key support for .NET servers
WS-Security X509 certificate enhancements
Full support for SOAP actor roles
A new WS-Security sample to show you how to use this support
WS-Addressing headers in local environment
Outbound W3C Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) support
Execution group SOAP connector port displayed in administrator tooling.

When added together, these facilities significantly extend the range of Web services scenarios supported by WebSphere Message Broker.

Tap into message content

WebSphere Message Broker flows typically carry important business information between enterprise applications. V6.1.0.2 allows IBM WebSphere Business Monitor and IBM WebSphere Business Modeler to tap into message flows, so you can extract and analyze information and gain business insight, such as tracking key performance indicators (KPI). For example, you could track total funds transferred via message flows between two banks, or track a monthly payments total between a healthcare company and a set of pharmacies.

In a related enhancement, WebSphere Message Broker can now capture copies of messages as they flow, and replay them, which can be useful in scenarios, such as changing a malformed Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payments message, or replaying messages to a third party that deleted them in error.

IBM Software Services for WebSphere can work with you to exploit this message flow transparency and create an auditing and business reporting solution tailored to your environment.

Monitor message flows

Integration with IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA lets WebSphere Message Broker work closely with the monitoring tool to help you extract more technical insight from your message flows.

With its dynamic views, Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA can reveal which applications call upon WebSphere Message Broker and which applications the broker calls, so you can see how WebSphere Message Broker’s connectivity fits into your application connectivity infrastructure. For example, you can see how long messages take to flow end-to-end and message size. (See Figure 1.)

This information can allow you to diagnose which component is responsible for the majority of the time spent handling a Web service request that depends on the interactions of multiple product components in a complex business request.

Figure 1: A diagram shows how products are interconnected by their runtime dependencies. In addition, message rates and sizes, and latency timings contribute to an accurate end-to end real-time picture of the interactions.

Other enhancements

Other customer-requested enhancements included in this WebSphere Message Broker Fix Pack include:

Raw TCP/IP support for legacy application connectivity with WebSphere MQ. WebSphere Message Broker can divide stream-based TCP/IP communications into messages and vice versa. As a result, you can now fully integrate sockets-based applications with WebSphere MQ, File, Web Services and SAP applications using Message Broker.
Support for Binary Large Object (BLOBs) for file node scenarios
Usability enhancements for SAP adapter nodes
Support for Citrix remote operations, including remote development
Built-in transaction log (TLOG) support for use in retail processing.

Get started with subcapacity pricing

WebSphere Message Broker offers a Get Started subcapacity pricing option that lets you try the product in an existing LPAR at a lesser charge as described in the CCR2 article: New lower pricing to help you start small workloads on the right platform: z/OS (CCR2, May 2008).

This option means that you can run WebSphere Message Broker in a large LPAR, and as long as it remains under a fractional total CPU threshold, you can benefit from the pricing mechanism recorded using SMF 89 subtype 1 records for the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT).

Your universal connectivity solution

IBM WebSphere Message Broker is built for universal connectivity and transformation in varied IT environments. It distributes information and data generated by business events in real time to people, applications, and devices throughout your extended enterprise and beyond.

IBM WebSphere Message Broker V6.1.0.2 is available as part of the May 2008 Fix Pack and introduces significant new opportunities for application connectivity.