Archive for the ‘WebSphere Application Server’ Category

Messaging engine data sources

Monday, November 20th, 2006

I’ve had a couple of queries in the past week about whether or not service integration bus messaging engines using a database for the message store need an XA capable JDBC data source. Thanks to Gareth Bottomley in the development team for locating the appropriate section hidden away in the InfoCenter that indicates you should configure a Connection pool data source i.e. non-XA capable. The messaging engine does not use the XA capabilities of the database, instead acting as a resource manager in its own right. So, for example, when you receive a message under a global transaction it is not deleted from the data base at that point under a JDBC transaction. Instead, it is non-transactionally marked with the Xid of the global transaction so that it is not received by other consumers and then, only when the transaction is commited, is the record removed. This is particularly important to note when using Oracle as the database as the Oracle XA driver has notoriously poor performance.

Presentation and dinner

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

Many of the presentations at the conference are repeats from our internal services conference earlier this year which means I have some spare time to catch up on other work. One session I did go to today was Eric Herness (Chief Architect for WebSphere Business Integration) presenting the new content in Version 6.0.2 of WebSphere Process Service and ESB. I think it’s safe to say this is a refresh pack with more than a few functional enhancements!

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Authentication aliases

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

I had a couple of questions last week relating to authentication aliases. When using WebSphere Application Server resources built on the JCA support, including JDBC data sources and JMS connection factories, there are a number of different mechanisms for specifying security credentials.

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J2EE newbies

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

Whilst the majority of the customers I deal with are well versed in the ways of WebSphere, just occasionally I come across one that is not only new to WebSphere but also to the world of J2EE. In the past I have struggled to suggest suitable reading material, often resorting to the Sun J2EE tutorial as a starting point. Now Charlie Brown (who, as he hastens to point out, does have a beagle but not called Snoopy) has written an excellent introduction to J2EE the WebSphere way entitled “Experience J2EE! Using WebSphere Application Server V6.1“. It’s currently only a draft but, having taken a look at the messaging section, it’s well written and informative. There is even a chapter covering the, to my mind, advanced topic of importing a subject on to a message-driven bean’s thread using the credentials passed in a message. Be sure to rate the book so that we can ensure that Charlie’s good work can continue.

developerWorks roundup

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

This is my usual weekly roundup of what’s new and interesting on developerWorks. This week we start with something for the WebSphere Application Server developer. When abstracting configuration properties out of code they often end up in a simple properties file. This is fine if the values are static but, if they need updating, you either need to redeploy the application containing the file or else put the file somewhere separate from the application. (If taking the latter approach then the config directory is a good place for the file as then you call leave the application server to replicate it across the nodes.) Perhaps a better approach is to configure a resource environment provider as described in this article, enabling properties to be defined administratively.

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High availability of WebSphere MQ link

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006

Today sees the release of WebSphere MQ SupportPac MR01. This provides the source for a WebSphere MQ channel exit which can be configured with a list of host names and port numbers to which the channel will attempt to connect. The intention is that this exit can be used when using a WebSphere MQ link to connect a clustered Service Integration Bus messaging engine to a queue manager. The messaging engine can now failover to another cluster member and the queue manager will still be able to connect.

WebSphere Application Server command framework

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Admin commands and task commands have done much to reduce the complexity of scripting WebSphere Application Server in recent releases, effectively bringing the simplicity of administrative console panels and wizards to the command line. If you find yourself repeating the same administrative actions, this developerWorks article covers in depth how to go about writing your own commands.

WebSphere ESB vs SIBus

Thursday, October 26th, 2006

Rachel Reinitz and Andre Tost have kicked off a new developerWorks series on WebSphere ESB with an article describing the relationship between the product and the Service Integration Bus. In my mind, it’s a shame the article doesn’t talk more about about the SIBus Web services support. The following phrase sums up the key difference: “WebSphere ESB is built with the strategic SCA/SDO programming model”.