IBM WebSphere MQ - Message-oriented Middleware

Message-oriented Middleware

WebSphere MQ, a member of the WebSphere family from IBM, was the most popular system for messaging across multiple platforms in 2000, including Windows, Linux, OS/2, IBM mainframe and midrange, and Unix. WebSphere MQ is often referred to as "MQ" or "MQ Series".

There are two parts to message queue (hence "MQ"):

• Messages are collections of binary or character (for instance ASCII or EBCDIC) data that have some meaning to a participating program. As in other communications protocols, storage, routing, and delivery information is added to the message before transmission and stripped from the message prior to delivery to the receiving application.
• Message queues are objects that store messages in an application.

A queue Manager, although not strictly required for message-oriented middleware, is a Websphere MQ prerequisite and system service that provides a logical container for the message queue and is responsible for transferring data to other queue managers via message channels.

There are several advantages to this technology:

• Messages do not depend on pure packet-based transmissions, such as TCP/IP. This allows the sending and receiving ends to be decoupled and potentially operate asynchronously.
• Messages will be delivered once and once only, irrespective of errors and network problems.

MQSeries Primer October 1999 MQSeries EAI Center Page 3 MQSeries is IBM’s middleware for commercial messaging and queuing. It is used by thousands of customers in every major industry in many countries around the world. MQSeries speeds implementation of distributed applications by simplifying application development and test. MQSeries runs on a variety of platforms. The MQSeries products enable programs to communicate with each other across a network of unlike components, such as processors, subsystems, operating systems and communication protocols. MQSeries programs use a consistent application program interface (API) across all platforms.