Behavioral changes in Version 10.0

Depending on your current version of WebSphere® Message Broker, IBM® Integration Bus Version 10.0 might introduce several technical changes in behavior. These changes might affect your post-migration development tasks.

The changes that affect you vary depending on your current version. Review the following changes to see how your post-migration development tasks might be affected:

Web user interface extended to support administration tasks

IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0 does not include IBM Integration Explorer. Instead, the web user interface is extended to support integration node administration tasks such as creating and managing integration servers, and deploying and managing resources.

For more information, see IBM Integration Bus web user interface.

Additional options for administration security

In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, you have two options for configuring administration security. As in previous versions, you can configure queue-based permissions by using WebSphere MQ queues on the queue manager that is specified on the integration node. Or you can configure file-based permissions on your integration node, which you set by using the mqsichangefileauth command.

If you have configured administration security and then you perform in-place migration, or parallel migration to integration nodes that are configured with queue managers, then your integration nodes continue to use queue-based permissions. Any security permissions that are set before migration are retained after migration.

If you have configured administration security and then you perform parallel migration to integration nodes that are not configured with queue managers, you must reconfigure your administration security to use file-based permissions. Any security permissions that are set before migration are not retained after migration.

For more information, see Authorizing users for administration.

Administration scripts might need to be updated

Parameters for administration commands that connect to integration nodes have changed; see the command reference topics for more information: Commands. The MQBrokerConnectionParameters IBM Integration API class has also been deprecated; see the Javadoc for the IBM Integration API.

IBM Integration Toolkit help topics might include details of function that is not available to you

By default, the IBM Integration Toolkit is now configured to use online product documentation to provide context-sensitive help from the latest information that is available. In previous versions, the IBM Integration Toolkit contained local help documentation, which was not automatically updated when new information became available. There is no difference in the way that help is displayed in the IBM Integration Toolkit. However, the content of the IBM Integration Bus section of the online product documentation is updated when fix packs are made available. If you have not deployed the latest fix pack, the help information might include details of function that is not available to you.

For more information, see Context-sensitive help.

If you do not want to access the online product documentation, you can download and install a local source of product documentation. For information about local documentation options, see Adding documentation to the IBM Integration Toolkit.

Message flow statistics on z/OS

In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, there are additional fields for accounting and statistics message flow data. These fields are added so that time intervals can be calculated correctly when the web user interface is running in a different time zone to the integration node.

On z/OS®, these new fields can be found in the BipSMFMessageFlow record:
  • IMFLSTTS: A timestamp in ISO8601 format that stores the start of the data collection interval.
  • IMFLENTS: A timestamp in ISO8601 format that stores the end of the data collection interval.
For more information, see z/OS SMF records for message flow accounting and statistics data.
The BipSMFMessageFlow version number (IMFLVER) is now set to 2, so that applications that parse the SMF records can determine which version of the BipSMFMessageFlow record they are parsing, and appropriate changes can be made to process or ignore the extra data fields.
Note: If an application parses the SMF records by using the record and field length values, then the extra data fields are ignored and the application should continue to function without changes.

Web user interface not enabled on migrated integration nodes

The web user interface for Web administration, REST administration, and Integration Registry is not enabled on migrated integration nodes. The web user interface is enabled by default on new integration nodes (and integration nodes that were created in Version 8.0.0.1 and later), but this interface is disabled on integration nodes that are migrated from Version 8.0.0.0 or earlier. Therefore, you cannot use REST applications, Web administration, or the Integration Registry with integration nodes that are migrated from Version 8.0.0.0 or earlier until you enable the web user interface for those integration nodes.

For information, see Enabling the web user interface.

z/OS platform

Actions on z/OS

An Integration Registry is introduced in IBM Integration Bus Version 9.0. The registry requires the value of the MAXMMAPAREA to be set higher than the system default. The Integration Registry is always on, and so you must tune this value, even if you are not using the registry. For more information, see Integration Registry

Subflows and BAR files

The default option for building new BAR files in IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0 is to package message flows as source, with ESQL files also included as source. Some existing message flows might not be compatible with this default option, but you can select a compatibility option to maintain previous behavior when you build a new BAR file. Any existing BAR files keep the previous behavior, which is to recompile ESQL into a .cmf file rather than package ESQL as separate source files.

For information about the solutions that are affected, see Adding resources to a BAR file.

Applications and Libraries

You can continue to use resources from a previous version of WebSphere Message Broker by importing them into a Version 10.0 workspace. However, you cannot create a message flow project in IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0. You can continue to use message flow projects from previous versions in the same way in Version 10.0 by migrating them to integration projects. You might want to continue to use message flow projects if you are working in a team environment, for example.

For more information, see Migrating development resources to IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0.

Message sets

In WebSphere Message Broker Version 8.0 and later, message model schema files contained in applications, integration services, and libraries are the preferred way to model messages for most data formats. Message sets are required if you use the MRM or IDOC domains. For more information about message modeling, see Message modeling concepts.

You can import message flows containing message sets from WebSphere Message Broker Version 7.0 into IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0. Your existing message sets can be viewed, compiled, and deployed. However, by default, your message sets are accessible in read-only mode and cannot be modified.

If you need to modify your existing message sets, or create new message sets or message definition files, you must first enable message set development in the IBM Integration Toolkit.

For more information, see Enabling message set development.

Message maps: change in behavior

In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, the behavior of the Assign transform in the Graphical Data Mapping editor has been corrected when you assign an empty string to an element.
  • In previous versions, when you perform an Assign transform on a target element that is defined as xsd:string, the Graphical Data Mapping editor sets the internal NULL value in the message tree for that element.
  • In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, when you perform an Assign transform on a target element that is defined as xsd:string, the Graphical Data Mapping editor sets the element value to the empty string '' value.
For message formats such as XML, this change in behavior has no impact on the message flow. However, if your message flow has logic that tests that the value of an element is the internal NULL value, you must modify the test to look for the empty string value, or modify the map to use the new iib:nullvalue() function. To call the new function, you use a Custom XPath transform.

Message maps are validated at deployment time

In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, message maps are prepared for execution on deployment instead of when the first message flows through the Mapping node. For more information, see Deploying message maps.

Message maps

In IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0, a graphical data mapping capability is used when you add a Mapping node to a message flow.

You can import message flows containing the following nodes, which use message mapping, from WebSphere Message Broker Version 7.0 into IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0:
  • DataDelete
  • DataInsert
  • DataUpdate
  • Extract
  • Mapping
  • Warehouse
When an ESQL Compute node contains an ESQL CALL statement that invokes a message map .msgmap, the process might be slightly different. The message map on these Version 7.0 nodes can be viewed, compiled into a BAR file, deployed, and run. The following information must be considered however:
  • The Version 7.0 message map operations are accessible only on read-only mode, and cannot be modified. To modify the transformation logic of an imported message flow that used Version 7.0 message mapping, you must convert the message map .msgmap file to a graphical data map .map file.
  • To run an unconverted message map, the whole message flow or application must be deployed in a BAR file that is in compiled message format (Cmf) with the Compile and in-line option set. This deployment node might prevent the use of other new capabilities that require deploying as a source. For example: To use deployable subflows in a .subflow file, the solution must be deployed as source.
  • The ESQL CALL statement cannot be used to invoke graphical data maps. When you convert flows that use the ESQL CALL statement, extra steps are required.

For more information, see Converting a message map from a .msgmap file to a .map file.