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Messaging resources

WebSphere Application Server supports asynchronous messaging based on the Java Message Service (JMS) and Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) specifications, which provide a common way for Java programs (clients and Java EE applications) to create, send, receive, and read asynchronous requests, as messages. Applications can use point-to-point and publish/subscribe messaging. These styles of messaging can be used in the following ways: one-way; request and response; one-way and forward.

JMS support enables applications to exchange messages asynchronously with other JMS clients using JMS destinations (queues or topics). Some messaging providers also allow WAS applications to use JMS support to exchange messages asynchronously with non-JMS applications; for example, WAS applications often need to exchange messages with IBM MQ applications. Applications can explicitly poll for messages from JMS destinations, or they can use message-driven beans to automatically retrieve messages from JMS destinations without explicitly polling for messages. Message-driven beans can be configured as listeners on a Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) 1.5 or 1.6 resource adapter or against a listener port.

WAS supports the following messaging providers:

The applications can use messaging resources from any of these JMS providers. The choice of provider is most often dictated by requirements to use or integrate with an existing messaging system. For example, we might already have a messaging infrastructure based on IBM MQ. In this case, we can either connect directly using the IBM MQ messaging provider, or configure a service integration bus with links to an IBM MQ network and then access the bus through the default messaging provider.

If we mainly want to use messaging between applications in WAS, perhaps with some interaction with an IBM MQ system, the default messaging provider is a logical choice. If our business also uses IBM MQ, and we want to integrate WAS messaging applications into a predominately IBM MQ network, choose the IBM MQ messaging provider. To administer a third-party messaging provider, we use either the resource adaptor (for a Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) 1.5-compliant or 1.6-compliant messaging provider) or the client (for a non-JCA messaging provider) supplied by the third party.

See Introduction: Messaging resources.