WBI Message Broker

SECTION 1
1a - Introduction (Animated introduction to WBI Brokers)

Fast time-to-value is critical for business integration projects.  This demonstration shows how WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, part of the WebSphere Business Integration suite, delivers industry leading time-to-value, by assisting and automating critical stages of the integration process.  In particular, you will see how the Message Broker Toolkit, simplifies and accelerates key tasks associated with integrating applications, such as the definition of data objects and their transformation, message routing, testing, deployment and administration.  And, you will see how the Toolkit takes advantage of the powerful capabilities of the Eclipse open source framework and industry standards, such as XML (X-M-L).

1b - Introduction: Industry standards accelerate initial stages of integration 

WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker provides a complete development environment for application integration.  It’s built on the WebSphere Studio Workbench -- the standard across the entire WebSphere portfolio and used by many Independent Software Vendors.

This Eclipse based  standard framework means that WBI Message Broker is faster to learn.  It reuses software repositories and provides role-based, personalized perspectives.   Development productivity is greatly enhanced since developers can perform the entire Edit-Compile-Debug development cycle using a set of integrated tools.  This all adds up to faster time to market.

SECTION 2
2 - EAI Scenario: Create | Qualify | Deploy 

The new Message Broker Toolkit, provided with WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, allows the solution developer to rapidly and logically create message flows and message sets in a modular, sequenced way.  The tools graphically and naturally break the solution into steps that capture the processing of the message. 

Once the flow of the message has been established, the solution developer can test, debug, and refine the message flow.  Then, when the message flow meets the final specifications, it is deployed from a single administrative console to one or more distributed message brokers in the network.  This combination of centralized management, with distributed processing, provides your business with maximum control and efficient use of resources and processes.   

SECTION 3
3a - EAI Scenario: Scenario Description 

The Enterprise Application Integration scenario is an example that introduces the tools and capabilities of the Message Broker Toolkit.  The steps for processing a Purchase Order message are represented graphically as nodes.  The nodes are connected to specify the flow of processing for the message, and can be customized to carry out assigned tasks. 
Manual effort required for data re-entry is reduced and duplicate transactions are eliminated.  Since each manual step and data re-entry point increases the potential for errors and slows the overall completion of tasks, data integrity is improved, which results in reduced costs.

In this scenario, the message input node accepts request messages in SOAP ("soap") format and validates their content.  

The filter node then invokes a stored procedure that passes a subset of the message so that a CRM ("C-R-M") system can validate the purchase order submission.  Invalid purchase orders can be routed to other nodes that handle the situation, either requesting user intervention or automating the processing, using another message flow.  

The database node checks the quantity of available stock in the database.  If there isn’t enough stock available to fulfill the purchase order, further nodes can be set up to choose a different supplier or send a response back to the requester, stating that no stock is available.  

If the stock is available, a shipping order is filled in with the appropriate information and passed to an output node that constructs an output message in SOAP format, as a Web Service response.   

You can see how the Message Broker helps you to speed up processing of purchase orders so that replenishment time is reduced, and lower stock inventory can be held.  This provides you with the flexibility and agility to fulfill customer orders in a timely and cost efficient manner. 

3b to 3e - EAI Scenario: Create: Define Messages 

The first stage in System Development is to create messages.
Knowledge about application data is held in message set definitions, which can be modeled on industry-standard or application-specific message formats.  These definitions are used in the message input nodes.

The Message Set Editor simplifies the task of maintaining and editing message set definitions to meet customer requirements.  Comprehensive, incremental validation ensures that the definitions are consistent and correct.  The tool has the powerful capability of handling multiple "wire formats". This capability can be used to target heterogeneous systems and compilers in a single message definition.

These features minimize the effort normally associated with creating and maintaining message set definitions, and increases their potential for reuse.

3f to 3k - EAI Scenario: Create: Define Messages 

The Message Broker Toolkit is designed to use the XML Schema standard that enables the rapid import of message definition Meta data from databases, registries and repositories.  As well, unlike competing XML based products, the Toolkit also supports record-oriented and tag-delimited messages such as C and COBOL structures, and SWIFT or EDIFACT (‘edifact’) messages.  This minimizes the effort normally associated with creating and maintaining message set definitions. 

Meta data exchange, with other tools and message repositories, is made simple with just a few clicks.  Message definitions are stored in XML Schema format files, and can be reused in other contexts that require XML Schema definitions. 
Industry standard Web Service Definition Language or WSDL (“wiz-dl") files can be exported from the message definitions. 

The broker's ability to interpret the structure of application messages allows the solution developer to concentrate on the operations performed on business data, rather than the bits and bytes in the physical structure of the messages.

SECTION 4
4. EAI Scenario: Create: Define Mediations 

At the center of the message broker is a powerful transformation engine, capable of interpreting, manipulating, and routing the complex application data formats and messages needed for business integration.

The Message Broker Toolkit lets everyone from programmers to solution developers become more productive through the use of the drag-and-drop palette, and automatic code generation.  It allows IT administrators and IT analysts to manage and understand how information flows within and outside the enterprise.  
4a - Create: Define Mediations 

The processing of message content is described using a graphical message flow, in which individual stages are represented by nodes.  Over thirty built-in nodes perform operations from simple checks, to complex logic and database manipulation. 

Graphical tooling simplifies business integration and enhances productivity.  The flow editor uses simple drag-and-drop actions to visually develop application flow logic.  The message flow editor allows rapid assembly of the Application Logic that determines the processing of messages.  Nested message flows encourage and allow the reuse of proven business behaviors.  The graphical tooling makes the business logic easy to understand by both technical and business staff.

(pause)  

Now that the overall flow of the message has been established, let’s look at how the content of the message is transformed … so that it can be handled by either another step in the message flow or the destination application. 
4b Define Mapping Mediations 

The mapping editor allows transformations, or mediations, to be easily and rapidly defined by drag-and-drop actions.  The powerful outline and overview features make it easy to understand even complex mapping transformations.

You can transform any incoming message to any outgoing format required.  Messages based upon XML, or C and COBOL language-based structures can be handled directly, and a variety of standard formats including EDI (E-D-I), SWIFT and HL7 (H-L-7) can be processed using predefined message sets.

Message and Data mappings are easily developed using drag-and-drop actions and efficient mapping composers, which minimize the effort to build and customize the integration solution.

4c Define ESQL Mediations

For even more power, additional data manipulation is possible using ESQL (“E sequel”) within the graphical environment.

ESQL is an expressive language that extends the industry standard SQL3 (sequel-3) language to support messages as well as relational databases.  The ESQL language supports SELECTs and JOINs of data from both messages and relational database tables.

Data transformation logic is easily coded with the ESQL editor, using syntax highlighting and content assistance.  Content assistance is provided for the language grammar, message fields, and relational database schemas.  This speeds all aspects of using the language, referencing message content, and interacting with relational databases.

Validation is built in, to improve efficiency and speed development, through early error detection and reduced troubleshooting. 

SECTION 5
5a - EAI Scenario: Qualify 

After systems development, the next stage is to test the application.  The extensive debug facilities available with the Message Broker Toolkit accelerate the time to deployment and the market place.  The test functions allow you to debug the flow logic and test the data as well.  

5b to 5k - EAI Scenario: Qualify (Flow Debugger with ESQL Debugging)

Unlike many competitive products, the Message Broker Toolkit lets developers identify and fix errors in the message flows before they are deployed to the production system.  The graphical debug interface lets the user debug and fix application flow and data transformation logic quickly, before it goes to production. This results in faster and fewer production test cycles, reduces failure rates, lowers maintenance costs and provides a faster time-to-value. 

SECTION 6
6a - EAI Scenario: Deploy 

After the application has been tested, it is ready to be deployed.
“Deployment” is the transfer of Message Flows and Message Sets to the broker.  Developers, System Testers, and Production Administrators all need to deploy message flows and sets to the broker.

For deployment, Message Flows and Message Sets are put into a zipped "Broker Archive" or “bar” file. 

6b to 6c - EAI Scenario: Deploy

Several Message flows and Message sets can be added to a single bar file.  All the contents of the bar are transferred at the same time to the runtime.  Changes resulting from new business requirements can then be implemented and redeployed quickly and easily. 

The broker archive contains an XML deployment descriptor document, which can be modified to fine-tune aspects of a flow for individual runtime environments, without touching the logic of the flows inside. 

The same application can now be deployed to different systems without having to modify them, because system property overrides allow separation of development from deployment. 

The archive file is also useful in environments where keeping track of changes is important -- it acts as a record of the deployed objects, and can be used to aid problem determination if the need arises.  

There are separate deployment methods for development, maintenance, and batch deployment.

Let’s look at development deployment.

6d to 6g - EAI Scenario : Deploy (Single click deploy)

Single-click deployment is for developers who have to edit, compile, and test their application repeatedly.  This mechanism performs all the archive assembly and configuration from a single mouse click.

The user can customize the system properties for their unit-test environment without changing their message flows.

6h to 6k - EAI Scenario : Deploy (GUI deploy)

Developers can also use a graphical user interface to easily view and maintain deployed brokers.

The Broker Archive Editor is used to configure the flows in an archive for deployment. System properties can be overridden in the Configure view to match a different broker environment without changing the message flow source.

Then either the drag-and-drop functions, or the menus can be used to send the broker archive to the runtime server.  When the deployment completes successfully, the GUI (“gooey”) will automatically update the runtime status.

6l - EAI Scenario : Deploy (Command line deploy)
There are command line tools for administrators that allow them to create batch deployments.  Brokers enable the administrator to configure a complex system, using scripts to automate the configuration of the production environment and to prevent human error.

XML configuration files enable the command line tools to perform batch processing, which apply and verify system overrides before any attempt is made to deploy them.  This supports the creation of predictable and repeatable deployment scenarios. 

Brokers enable build processes that work with a source control repository, to determine the running versions of message flows.  These processes are scriptable, so you can configure other runtime components such as databases.
6m - EAI Scenario: Deploy (Broker Administration Console)

The broker administration console delivers lower cost of ownership.

For simple, single-node deployments, the integrated Message Broker Toolkit provides all the control within a single, easy-to-use interface.  However, as part of an enterprise integration bus, many large organizations are now looking at deploying multi-node networks of both Event Brokers and Message Brokers, distributed across many locations.  For these organizations, access control lists allow the appropriate people to manage the different broker resources securely, while the Alert Window ensures rapid diagnosis of points of failure, wherever they may occur. 

The brokers deliver ongoing benefits that help to minimize the cost of ownership, while providing the flexibility to scale up your enterprise integration as your business needs increase.

SECTION 7
7a – Summary

You have seen how WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, part of the WebSphere Business Integration suite, can help you improve control of resources and processes, and simplify your application development.  It lowers maintenance costs, reduces implementation time and provides you with the flexibility to meet changing integration needs.

No other business integration suite provides such a comprehensive collection of industry-standard tools, or gives such a high return on investment.

7b – Summary

For further information, please see our website at
www.ibm.com/software/businessintegration, 
or contact your IBM sales representative.