Considerations when choosing between a file store and a data store

Choosing to use a file store for your messaging engine can have several advantages over using a data store.

  1. Better performance

    To achieve best performance using a data store, you often need to use a separate remote database server. A file store can exceed the performance of a data store using a remote database server without needing a separate server.

  2. Low administration requirements

    The file store combines high throughput with little or no administration. This makes it suitable for those who do not want to worry about where the messaging engine is storing its recoverable data. A file store improves on the throughput, and scalability of Derby.

  3. Lower deployment costs

    Use of data store might require database administration to configure and manage your messaging engines. File store can be used in environments without a database server.

As a managerial decision, some organizations prefer to use data store because it utilizes their existing resources more effectively. For example, this might be the case for a company with a strong team of database specialists, or a stable database infrastructure.

[Updated in December 2011] If there is a transient connectivity loss to the file system, the application server must be restarted once the connectivity to the file system is restored. Whereas, in the case of the data store, the messaging engine can recover from the database itself. In such situations, the data store will be a preferred high availability option than the file store system. [Updated in December 2011]

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One technical advantage of using data store is that some J2EE application can share JDBC connections to benefit from one-phase commit optimization. For more information refer to Sharing connections to benefit from one-phase commit optimization. File store does not support this optimization.

Data stored in both data store and file store benefit from security features provided by WebSphere® Application Server when accessed using the WebSphere APIs, that is JMS messaging. Further security features can be taken advantage of depending on the type of message store you use. For more details see File stores and Data stores.



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