Transport chains
Transport chains represent a network protocol stack used for I/O operations within an appserver environment.
Transport chains are part of the channel framework function that provides a common networking service for all components, including the service integration bus component of IBM service integration technologies, WebSphere Secure Caching Proxy, and the high availability manager core group bridge service.
A transport chain consists of one or more types of channels, each of which supports a different type of I/O protocol, such as TCP, DCS. or HTTP. Network ports can be shared among all of the channels within a chain. The channel framework function automatically distributes a request arriving on that port to the correct I/O protocol channel for processing.
For transitioning users: If we have a routine that issues a call to start transports during server startup, unless we have a mixed-node environment and that server is running in a Version 5.1 node, WAS converts the call to a transport chain call.trns
The transport chain settings determine which I/O protocols are supported for that chain. Following are some of the more common types of channels. Custom channels that support requirements unique to a particular customer or environment can also be added to a transport chain.
- DCS channel
- Used in an ND environment by the core group bridge service, the data replication service (DRS), and the high availability manager to transfer data, objects, or events among appservers.
- HTTP inbound channel
- Used to enable communication with remote servers. It implements the HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 standards and is used by other channels, such as the Web container channel, to serve HTTP requests and to send HTTP specific information to servlets expecting this type of information.
HTTP inbound channels are used instead of HTTP transports to establish the request queue between a Web server plug-in, and a Web container in which the Web modules of an application reside.
- HTTP proxy inbound channel
- Used to handle HTTP requests between a proxy server and appserver nodes.
- HTTP Tunnel channel
- Used to provide client applications with persistent HTTP connections to remote hosts that are either blocked by firewalls or require an HTTP proxy server, including authentication, or both. An HTTP Tunnel channel enables the exchange of application data in the body of an HTTP request or response that is sent to or received from a remote server. An HTTP Tunnel channel also enables client-side applications to poll the remote host and to use HTTP requests to either send data from the client or to receive data from an application server. In either case, neither the client nor the appserver is aware that HTTP is being used to exchange the data.
- JFAP channel
- Used by the JMS server to create connections to JMS resources on a service integration bus.
- MQ channel
- Used in combination with other channels, such as a TCP channel, within the confines of WebSphere MQ support to facilitate communications between a WebSphere System Integration Bus and a WebSphere MQ client or queue manager.
- SIP channel
- Used to create a bridge in the transport chain between a session initiation protocol (SIP) inbound channel, and a servlet and JSP engine.
- SIP container inbound channel
- Used to handle communication between the SIP inbound channel and the SIP servlet container.
- SIP inbound channel
- Used to handle inbound SIP requests from a remote client.
- SSL channel
- Used to associate an SSL configuration repertoire with the transport chain. This channel is only available when SSL support is enabled for the transport chain. An SSL configuration repertoire is defined in the admin console, under security, on the SSL configuration repertoires > SSL configuration repertoires page.
- TCP channel
- Used to provide client applications with persistent connections within a LAN when a node uses TCP to retrieve information from a network.
- UDP channel
- Used to provide client applications with persistent connections within a Local Area Network (LAN) when a node uses UDP to retrieve information from a network.
- Web container channel
- Create a bridge in the transport chain between an HTTP inbound channel and a servlet and JSP engine.
Related tasks
Administer appservers
Set transport chains