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Service integration bus links [Settings]

This pane displays links between this messaging engine and messaging engines in foreign service integration buses.

To view this page in the console, click the following path:

Service integration -> Buses -> bus_name -> [Topology] Foreign bus connections -> foreign_bus_name -> [Related Items] Service integration bus links -> link_name

The messaging engine in the foreign bus must also have a service integration bus link to the local bus. For a connection to be active, the service integration bus links at both ends must be started.


Configuration tab

The Configuration tab shows configuration properties for this object. These property values are preserved even if the runtime environment is stopped then restarted.


General Properties


Name

The name of the service integration bus link. In order to work, the name must be the same as the name of the corresponding service integration bus link configured on the target foreign bus.

Information Value
Required Yes
Data type String


UUID

The universal unique identifier assigned by the system to the service integration bus link for administrative purposes.

Information Value
Required No
Data type String


Description

An optional description for the service integration bus link, for administrative purposes.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective immediately.

Information Value
Required No
Data type Text area


UUID

The universal unique identifier assigned by the system to the service integration bus link for administrative purposes.

Information Value
Required Yes
Data type drop-down list


Local messaging engine

The local messaging engine that this service integration bus link is hosted on.

Information Value
Required Yes
Data type drop-down list


Foreign messaging engine

The messaging engine on the foreign bus to which this service integration bus link connects.

Information Value
Required Yes
Data type String


Initial state

The initial state of the link, which shows whether the link is started automatically when the messaging engine is started.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective when the messaging engine is restarted or the service integration bus link is created. Use the Runtime tab to check the current state.

Information Value
Required No
Data type drop-down list
Range

Stopped

When the associated messaging engine is started, the gateway link is in a stopped state and cannot process any new requests for connections.

Started

When the associated messaging engine is started, the gateway link is in a started state and can process any new requests for connections.


Exception destination

The destination for an inbound message when the service integration bus link cannot deliver the message to its target bus destination, or to the exception destination configured for that target destination, or when the target destination does not exist.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective immediately.

Select a radio button as required to configure the exception destination that this service integration bus link uses:

Information Value
Required No
Data type Radio button
Default System


Prefer queue points local to this link's messaging engine

When this check box is selected, the link prefers to send inbound messages to available queue points of target destinations located on the messaging engine on which the link is hosted.

When this check box is not selected, or if no local queue point is available for a target destination, the link workload balances the messages across all available queue points of the target destination. By default the check box is selected.

This option is supported on links running on WebSphere Application Server v7.0 or later. If we are running on an earlier version, the default behavior of preferring local queue points is applied.

Information Value
Required Yes
Data type Boolean


Related Items

JAAS - J2C authentication data .

List of user identities and passwords for Java 2 connector security to use. Refer to Java 2 Connector authentication data entry settings.

Foreign bus connection

The associated foreign bus connection for this service integration bus link.

Messaging engine

The remote messaging engine where this queue point is localized.

Link transmitters

For applications that use point-to-point messaging, there is one link transmission message point located on each messaging engine in the source bus. For applications that use publish/subscribe messaging, there is one link transmission message point located on each topic space in the source bus. The link transmitter acts as a transmission queue where produced messages are persisted before transmission across the inter-bus link to the foreign bus.


Runtime tab

The Runtime tab shows runtime properties for this object. These properties directly affect the current runtime environment, but are not preserved when that environment is stopped. To preserve runtime property values, change the equivalent property values on the Configuration tab.


General Properties


Status

The runtime status of the service integration bus link.

Status can take the following values:

Status Definition
Starting The service integration bus link is started on the local messaging engine but has no connection to the foreign bus. The service integration bus link is attempting to activate a connection to the foreign bus. The service integration bus link on the foreign bus must also be started to enable the successful activation of a connection between the buses.
Started The service integration bus link is started on the local messaging engine and has an active connection to the foreign bus.
Stopped The service integration bus link is stopped on the local messaging engine and there is no connection to the foreign bus.
Unknown The deployment manager cannot contact a remote server to determine the status.

Information Value
Required No
Data type String


Transmitter/Receiver Queues

Link receivers

For applications that use point-to-point messaging, there is one link receiver for each messaging engine in the foreign bus. For applications that use publish/subscribe messaging, there is one link receiver for each topic space in the foreign bus. The link receiver acts as an inbound receiver queue for a message engine that has applications attached and that is producing messages across this service integration bus link.

Link transmitters

For applications that use point-to-point messaging, there is one link transmission message point located on each messaging engine in the source bus. For applications that use publish/subscribe messaging, there is one link transmission message point located on each topic space in the source bus. The link transmitter acts as a transmission queue where produced messages are persisted before transmission across the inter-bus link to the foreign bus.


Target inbound transport chain

The type of transport chain used for communication with the foreign bus.

The transport chain name must be the name of the transport chain as defined on the server on which the target messaging engine is hosted.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective when the link is restarted. Use the Runtime tab to check the current state.

Information Value
Required No
Data type String


Bootstrap endpoints

A comma-separated list of endpoint triplets, with the syntax hostName:portNumber:chainName, used to connect to a bootstrap server. For example Merlin:7276:BootstrapBasicMessaging,Gandalf:5557:BootstrapSecureMessaging. If hostName is not specified, the default is localhost. If portNumber is not specified, the default is 7276. If chainName is not specified, the default is BootstrapBasicMessaging. Refer to the information center for more information.

Set in the same way as the Provider endpoint property in the JMS connection factory settings.

The port for the bootstrap endpoint is the port defined on the service integration bus endpoint address configured on the target application server on the foreign bus.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective when the link is restarted. Use the Runtime tab to check the current state.

You only have to modify this property if we have client applications running outside of an application server, or applications on a server in another cell, that want to use this connection factory to connect to the target service integration bus specified on the connection factory.

To use JMS destinations of the default messaging provider, an application connects to a messaging engine on the target service integration bus to which the destinations are assigned. For example, a JMS queue is assigned to a queue destination on a service integration bus.

Client applications running outside of an application server - for example, running in a client container or outside the WAS environment - cannot locate directly a suitable messaging engine to connect to in the target bus. Similarly, an application running on a server in one cell to connect to a target bus in another cell cannot locate directly a suitable messaging engine to connect to in the target bus.

In these scenarios, the clients (or servers in another bus) must complete a bootstrap process through a bootstrap server that is a member of the target bus. A bootstrap server is an application server running the SIB Service, but does not have to be running any messaging engines. The bootstrap server selects a messaging engine running in an application server that supports the required target transport chain. For the bootstrap process to be possible, configure one or more provider end points in the connection factory used by the client.

A bootstrap server uses a specific port and bootstrap transport chain. The port is the SIB_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS (or SIB_ENDPOINT_SECURE_ADDRESS if security is enabled), of the messaging engine that hosts the remote end of the link. Together with host name, these form the endpoint address of the bootstrap server.

The properties of a JMS connection factory used by an application control the selection of a suitable messaging engine and how the application connects to the selected messaging engine.

(iSeries) Note: For the IBM i platform, we must (at least) change the default host name from localhost to your.server.name.

To have an application to use a bootstrap server with a different endpoint address, specify the required endpoint address on the Provider endpoints property of the JMS connection factories that the client application uses. We can specify one or more endpoint addresses of bootstrap servers.

The endpoint addresses for bootstrap servers must be specified in every JMS connection factory used by applications outside of an application server. To avoid having to specify a long list of bootstrap servers, we can provide a few highly-available servers as dedicated bootstrap servers. Then we only have to specify a short list of bootstrap servers on each connection factory.

When configuring a connection to a non-default bootstrap server, specify the required values for the endpoint address and use colons as separators.

For example: for a server assigned non-secure port 7278, on host boothost1, that uses the default transport chain BootstrapBasicMessaging: 

boothost1:7278:BootstrapBasicMessaging
or 
boothost1:7278
and for a server assigned secure port 7289, on host boothost2, that uses the predefined transport chain BootstrapTunneledSecureMessaging: 
boothost2:7289:BootstrapTunneledSecureMessaging

The syntax for an endpoint address is as follows: 

[ [host_name] [ ":" [port_number] [ ":" chain_name] ] ]
where:

host_name

is the name of the host on which the server runs. It can be an IP address. For an IPv6 address, put square braces ([]) around host_name as shown in the example below: 
[2002:914:fc12:179:9:20:141:42]:7276:BootstrapBasicMessaging
. If a value is not specified, the default is localhost.

(iSeries) Note: For the IBM i platform, we must (at least) change the default host name from localhost to your.server.name.

port_number

where specified, is one of the following addresses of the messaging engine that hosts the remote end of the link:

  • SIB_ENDPOINT_ADDRESS if security is not enabled

  • For secure connections, SIB_ENDPOINT_SECURE_ADDRESS if security is enabled.

If port_number is not specified, the default is 7276.

To find either of these values using the administrative console, click...

        Servers -> Server Types -> WebSphere application servers -> server -> [Communications] Ports.

chain_name

is the name of a predefined bootstrap transport chain used to connect to the bootstrap server. If not specified, the default is BootstrapBasicMessaging.

The following predefined bootstrap transport chains are provided:

BootstrapBasicMessaging

This corresponds to the server transport chain InboundBasicMessaging (JFAP-TCP/IP)

BootstrapSecureMessaging

This corresponds to the server transport chain InboundSecureMessaging (JFAP-SSL-TCP/IP)

BootstrapTunneledMessaging

Before we can use this bootstrap transport chain, define a corresponding server transport chain on the bootstrap server. (See Servers -> Server Types -> WebSphere application servers -> server -> [Server messaging] Messaging engine inbound transports.) This transport chain tunnels JFAP and uses HTTP wrappers.

BootstrapTunneledSecureMessaging

Before we can use this bootstrap transport chain, define a corresponding server transport chain on the bootstrap server. (SeeServers -> Server Types -> WebSphere application servers -> server -> [Server messaging] Messaging engine inbound transports.) This transport chain tunnels JFAP and uses HTTP wrappers.

Specify host_name : chain_name instead of host_name : : chain_name (with two colons) is incorrect. It is valid to enter nothing, or to enter any of the following: "a", "a:", ":7276", "::chain", and so on. The default value applies if we do not specify a value, but we must separate the fields with ":".

To provide more than one bootstrap server, identify all the required endpoint addresses. Separate each endpoint address by a comma character. For example, to use the servers from the earlier example: 

boothost1:7278:BootstrapBasicMessaging, 
  boothost2:7289:BootstrapTunneledSecureMessaging, 
  [2002:914:fc12:179:9:20:141:42]:7276:BootstrapBasicMessaging

Information Value
Required No
Data type Text area


Authentication alias

The name of the authentication alias, used to authenticate access to the foreign bus.

We must have predefined a Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) authentication alias.

Dynamic updates to this property are effective when the link is restarted. Use the Runtime tab to check the current state.

Modified aliases are only visible after a server restart.

Information Value
Required No
Data type drop-down list

  • Configure foreign bus connections
  • Configure exception destination processing for a link to a foreign bus
  • Configure service integration bus links
  • Configure the properties of a service integration bus link