IBM WebSphere Message Broker

WebSphere Message Broker (WMB) is IBM's information broker from the WebSphere product family that allows business information to flow between disparate applications across multiple hardware and software platforms. Business rules can be applied to the data flowing through the message broker to route and transform the information. The product can be considered to be an Enterprise Service Bus providing connectivity between disparate applications.

History

Originally the product was developed by a company named 'NEON', short for 'New Era of Networks'. IBM acquired the product from this company during the late nineties and branded it 'MQSeries Integrator' or 'mqsi' for short. Versions of mqsi ran up to 2.1.The product was added to the Websphere family and rebranded 'Websphere MQ Integrator', still version 2.1.From 2.1 the version numbers are synchronized with the rest of the Websphere family and jumped to version 5.0. The name changed to 'Websphere Business Integration Message Broker' (WBIMB). In this version the development environment was redesigned using Eclipse and support for Web services was integrated into the product.The current major version 6.1 is branded as 'Websphere Message Broker'.

Components

WebSphere Message Broker consists of four components:

* Broker
* Configuration Manager
* User Name Server
* WebSphere Message Brokers Toolkit

How Message Broker works

Overview

The WebSphere Message Broker Toolkit enables developers to graphically design message flows and related artifacts. Once developed, these resources can be packaged into a broker archive (BAR) file and deployed into the runtime environment. At this point, the broker is able to continually process messages according to the logic described by the message flow [ [http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wmbhelp/v6r1m0/topic/com.ibm.etools.mft.doc/ab20551_.htm WebSphere Message Broker technical overview ] ] .

Broker nodes available

A developer can choose from many pre-designed broker nodes. Nodes have different purposes. Some nodes map data from one format to another (for instance, Cobol or PL/I Copybook to canonical XML). Other nodes evaluate content of data and route the flow differently based on certain criteria.

Node types

The following node transformation technology options are available: [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0608_piper/0608_piper.html Transformation Options for WebSphere Message Broker V6] ]
* Extended Structured Query Language (ESQL)
* Graphical Message Mapping
* eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT)
* JavaCompute (as of version 6)
* WebSphere Transformation Extender (formerly known as Ascential DataStage TX, DataStage TX and Mercator Integration Broker) is available as a separate licensing option [http://www-306.ibm.com/software/integration/wbimessagebroker/dstxextender/ WebSphere Transformation Extender for Message Broker] ]

upported platforms

Operating systems

Currently available platforms for WebSphere Message Brokers 6.1 are:

* AIX
* HP-UX (PA-RISC and IA64)
* Solaris (SPARC and x86-64)
* Linux (x86, x86-64, PPC and 390x)
* Microsoft Windows
* z/OS

Trivia

* The Configuration Manager repository was named "BERNARD" after the Configuration Manager development team’s pet gargoyle. [ [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/library/techarticles/0706_lucas/0706_lucas.html Secrets of the Configuration Manager in WebSphere Message Broker V6] ]

References

ee also

* Comparison of business integration software

External links

* [http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wbimessagebroker/v6/faqs.html FAQs]
* [http://www.ibm.com/software/integration/wbimessagebroker/ Product page]
* [http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247137.html WebSphere Message Broker Basics Redbook]
* [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/businessintegration/roadmaps/wsmb/index.html WebSphere Message Broker Roadmap]
* [http://www.mqsoftware.com/training/categories/websphere/message-broker/ WebSphere Message Broker Training]
* [http://www.mqsoftware.com/consulting/websphere/broker/ WebSphere Message Broker Consulting]