External high availability frameworks and service integration

You can configure an external high availability framework, such as IBM® HACMP, to manage a messaging engine as if it is a resource in the external high availability framework resource group.

To allow a messaging engine to be managed by an external high availability framework, you configure a No operation policy for the messaging engine. When you do this, HAManager activates or deactivates a messaging engine only when the external high availability framework instructs it to.

The following situation requires the use of an external high availability framework:
  • Using an external database for the data store of the messaging engine. In this situation, the database must be accessible by the server that is running the messaging engine. To achieve this configuration, include the database and the messaging engine in the same external cluster resource group, so that the database is collocated with the messaging engine.
The following situation might require the use of an external high availability framework:
  • Connecting a messaging engine to WebSphere® MQ by using a WebSphere MQ link.

    If you require high availability, you must add support for changes of IP address. The WebSphere MQ gateway queue manager uses one IP address to reach the WebSphere Application Server gateway messaging engine, and the WebSphere Application Server gateway messaging engine uses one IP address to reach the WebSphere MQ gateway queue manager. In a high availability configuration, if the gateway messaging engine fails over to a different application server, or the gateway queue manager fails and is replaced by a failover gateway queue manager, the connection to the original IP address for the failed component is lost. You must ensure that both products are able to reinstate their connection to the component in its new location.

    For more information about the options that are available for ensuring that the connection to a failover WebSphere Application Server gateway messaging engine is reinstated, see High availability of messaging engines that are connected to WebSphere MQ.

    Note: To provide high availability for a WebSphere MQ queue manager connected to WebSphere Application Server, you can specify multiple connection names in your WebSphere Application Server definition for the WebSphere MQ link sender channel. If the active gateway queue manager fails, the service integration bus can use this information to reconnect to a standby gateway queue manager.