What's new?

At a glance:

The following prioritized list summarizes the new functions and capabilities:

Consolidation of function in WebSphere Business Integration Message Brokers

Publish/subscribe capabilities have been consolidated within WebSphere Business Integration Message Brokers and internet-related items such as SSL authentication and QOS, and HTTP tunnelling have been added.

This rationalizes the product offerings and provides a clear upgrade path from WebSphere Business Integration Event Broker to WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker.

Multicast distribution node

The set of protocols and distribution patterns supported by the broker has been extended with the addition of a new output node which provides support for reliable, real-time IP multicast distribution of subscriptions over a Local Area Network. This is provided as an extension to the existing JMS IP support in the Event Broker. The goal of this support is to provide reliable multicasting of up to one thousand 1 Kb messages per second to all the receivers at the same time.

The key functions are:

  • Stream management
  • Unreliable multicasting over LAN
  • Reliable multicasting over LAN
  • Multicasting address management
  • Integration with the existing JMS interface
  • Integration with the existing security model
  • Limited security function
Initial user experience

The initial user experience of the product has been enhanced through the addition of several new features and functions.

The pre-install LaunchPad is launched from the Windows CD prior to installation. It provides a menu of options which guide you through the process of checking for, and installing, any necessary prerequisite software before launching the product installation. The install is now implemented using InstallShield for Multi-Platforms.

The Welcome page for the WebSphere Studio application, which appears after you launch the Message Brokers Toolkit for WebSphere Studio, provides links to a number of basic tasks, enabling you to configure and exercise a working system as quickly as possible. Supported tasks include:

  • Create a default configuration (getting started wizard).
  • Take an animated tour.
  • Import then use the Getting started samples.
  • Explore the Samples Gallery.
Extended database user ID and password support

External database access from Compute, Database and Warehouse nodes has been extended through the provision of a facility that allows you to associate a specific user ID and password with a given ODBC DSN in the broker runtime. This user ID and password combination is then used for all connections made by the broker to the particular DSN, overriding the default use of the broker's user ID and password.

This addresses a key requirement to be able to specify different user ID and password combinations for different databases and to be able to set this on a broker-by-broker basis. A command line tool is provided for setting this information in the broker.

Web Services support

Several enhancements provide support for Web Services in WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker:

  • Full support for the construction and parsing of SOAP messages, and the addition of XML namespace support through the extension of XML Wire Format.
  • CMI binding for WSIF, providing support for building Web Service requests around any existing message in the MRM domain (meaning that it no longer requires mapping to SOAP over JMS or HTTP).
  • Web Service Description Language (WSDL) generation from a message set.
  • HTTP input and output nodes.
Integration of XSLT transformation capability performance enhancements

Additional transformation capabilities have been provided through the inclusion of a new XSLT-based XML Transformation node. Initially this supports transformation of XML messages only. The style sheet used to define the transformation can be specified as an attribute of the node instance, or can be determined within the context of the flow and specified using a defined area of the Local Environment.

This capability is delivered through repackaging and enhancement of the XALAN-based XSLT style sheet transformation engine derived from the WebSphere Transcoding Publisher product.

Linux platform support

WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker has been ported to the Linux operating system on the Intel (IA32) and z/Series platforms.