Guidelines, related to versions of WebSphere® Application
Server, to help you choose when to configure your message-driven beans
to work with listener ports rather than activation specifications.
You can configure the following resources for message-driven beans:
- Activation specifications for message-driven beans that comply
with Java™ EE Connector Architecture (JCA) Version
1.5.
- The message listener service, listener ports, and listeners for
any message-driven beans that you want to deploy against listener
ports.
If you want to use message-driven beans with a messaging provider that does not have a JCA 1.5 resource adapter (for example the WebSphere MQ messaging provider or the V5 Default Messaging provider), you cannot use activation specifications and therefore you must configure your beans against a listener port. There are also a few scenarios in which, although you could use activation specifications, you might still choose to use listener ports. For example, for compatability with existing message-driven bean applications. Here
are some guidelines, related to versions of WebSphere Application
Server, to help you choose when to use listener ports rather than
activation specifications:
- WebSphere Application Server Version 4
does not support message-driven beans, so listener ports and activation
specifications are not applicable. WebSphere Application
Server Version 4 does support message beans, but these are not message-driven
beans.
- WebSphere Application Server Version 5
supports EJB 2.0 (JMS only) message-driven beans that are deployed
using listener ports. This deployment technology is sometimes called
application server facility (ASF).
- WebSphere Application Server Version 6
continues to support message-driven beans that are deployed using
listener ports, and also supports JCA, which you can use to deploy
message-driven beans using activation specifications. This gives you
the following options for deploying message-driven beans on WebSphere Application
Server Version 6:
- You must deploy default messaging (service integration bus) message-driven
beans using activation specifications.
- You must deploy WebSphere MQ message-driven beans using listener
ports.
- You can deploy third-party messaging message-driven beans using
either listener ports or activation specifications, depending on the
facilities available from your third-party messaging provider.