Configurable services

You can use configurable services to define properties that are related to external services on which the integration node relies; for example, an SMTP server or a JMS provider.

Instead of assigning a value to a property on a message flow node, you can create a configurable service on the integration node where the message flow is deployed. At run time, message flows and message flow nodes then refer to the configurable service to find the property value. You can then affect the behavior of the deployed message flow (without redeploying any resources) by changing the value of the property in the configurable service on the integration node.

IBM® Integration Bus comes with a number of IBM predefined configurable service templates that cannot be deleted. Each IBM predefined template has a configurable service type, which determines the properties of the configurable service and the default value for each property. You create a configurable service by using one of the following methods:
  • Create a configurable service from an IBM predefined template, and change the values of the properties if required.
  • Create a configurable service by using an existing configurable service as a template, and change the values of the properties as required.
  • Create a user-defined configurable service, and specify both the properties and the values of the properties.

For most types of configurable service, your changes take effect from the next time a message flow that uses the configurable service is called. For some types of configurable service (where it is stated in the documentation for the configurable service type) you must stop and start the integration server for the change to take effect.

You can use the web user interface or commands to view, add, modify, and delete configurable services. For more information, see the following topics:

If you are working with configurable services from the web user interface you can hide the IBM predefined templates by clicking the Filter Options link at the top of the navigator, and then deselecting the Show IBM predefined templates check box.

For a full list of configurable service types and their properties, see Configurable services properties.