WebSphere MQ enables you to reliably and consistently integrate your applications, allowing you to fully leverage your existing software and hardware assets. As the market leader for message-orientated middleware, it offers scalable, enterprise-class connectivity designed to grow with your integration challenges and needs. WebSphere MQ enables you to begin deploying your enterprise service bus (ESB) today and gain the benefits of an integrated service-orientated architecture (SOA).
WebSphere MQ provides reliable, resilient application integration by passing messages between applications and Web services. It reduces the risk of information loss and the need to reconcile communicating IT systems by using queuing and transactional facilities that help preserve the integrity of messages across the network. WebSphere MQ eliminates the need to write complex communications code and offers a choice of simple APIs (Message Queue Interface (MQI) and JMS) that are consistent across the range of more than 80 supported operating environments, provided both by IBM and business partners.
Overview
- Assured Delivery
Assured Delivery:
WebSphere MQ can reduce the risk of data being lost when applications, Web services, or networks fail. It also helps ensure that data is not duplicated and completes as a single unit of work or transaction. This assured delivery means that WebSphere MQ forms the proven backbone of many critical communication systems and is entrusted with delivering business-critical and high-value data. WebSphere MQ can deliver information either synchronously or asynchronously depending on the needs of the applications and Web services. It can also be configured to provide a less-robust quality of service for increased performance on less-critical data.
- Powerful Development Facilities
Powerful Development Facilities:
WebSphere MQ simplifies integration tasks by providing a functionally rich -- yet easy to use -- application development interface that removes the data movement and storage logic from the application, allowing users to focus on the business logic.
WebSphere MQ provides a consistent application programming interface (MQI) across all its supported platforms, which helps make integrated programs portable. In addition to this de facto standard interface, WebSphere MQ also fully implements the industry standard Java Message Service (JMS) interface, including support for publish and subscribe messaging.
The WebSphere MQ Explorer tool, included in the product, enables the entire MQ network to be administered and configured remotely. Based on the open source Eclipse framework, this administration and configuration tool is extensible.
- End-to-End Security
End-to-End Security:
WebSphere MQ supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for authentication, message integrity checking, and encryption for data sent across the Internet. SSL has become the de facto standard for Internet security and is widely available on different operating systems.
WebSphere MQ Extended Security Edition enhances this security support with end-to-end, application-level data protection features. Available as an upgrade to WebSphere MQ, it enables enterprise-wide, remote management of security polices and can be deployed to existing production environments without changes to existing WebSphere MQ applications.
- Web Services
Web Services:
WebSphere MQ makes an ideal transport for adding reliability and traceability to SOAP interactions between Web services, especially as part of a service-orientated architecture (SOA). Legacy and batch applications that are Web services-enabled can also benefit from using WebSphere MQ in its asynchronous mode as a buffering mechanism to regulate the flow of requests made to these systems.
- Reliable File Transfer
Reliable File Transfer:
WebSphere MQ reduces the time and skills required to be productive with a new File Transfer application that provides a simple GUI tool to move files across the MQ network with reliability. In addition, simple scripting commands for file transfer enable batches of files to be transferred, triggered by the operating system or by applications.
- Clustering
Clustering:
WebSphere MQ supports clustering for dynamically distributing messaging workload across available MQ resources.
- Time-Independent Processing
Time-Independent Processing:
WebSphere MQ allows users to send business information to other parts of their business, or to Business Partners or customers, without waiting for it to arrive, safe in the knowledge that as soon as recipients are able to receive it, the information will be delivered. This is particularly useful when the sender and recipient work in different time zones or in different countries.
Time-independent (asynchronous) messaging decouples applications. When applications are running and the network is up, WebSphere MQ in asynchronous mode delivers messages just as quickly as in synchronous mode. Asynchronous messaging enables the messaging layer to cope better with situations where parts of the architecture are unavailable. If this happens, the messages are kept safe and data is eventually processed when it can be.
- Integrate Virtually Anything
Integrate Virtually Anything:
Most enterprises today are large, distributed organizations that have accumulated, written, or acquired a range of diverse IT systems, often independently over time.
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations need to invest in using the power of integration to increase their responsiveness and flexibility, instead of wrestling with underlying network complexities to connect applications. Maintaining home-grown approaches for connecting applications wastefully diverts valuable skills and time away from higher-level integration concerns. Offloading these time-consuming tasks to WebSphere MQ frees systems integrators and application developers to apply their skills to higher-level integration challenges that bring further benefits to both IT departments and to the business.
- Support for Growth
Support for Growth:
WebSphere MQ does more than just enable customers to manage the technology they have today more effectively. It gives them a clear path to the future -- a flexible infrastructure in which they can develop and deploy new applications faster and more cost effectively, without writing complex communications code.
Both WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Application Server provide messaging resources that can form the foundation for a company's enterprise service bus (ESB), which can grow incrementally with their business needs.
