Defining message flows

When a WebSphere Business Integration adapter uses a message broker as its integration broker, it uses WebSphere MQ message flows to process and route business object messages representing data or requests being sent by business applications to one another. A single message flow, defined for each queue, processes all messages placed on that queue. Using the MQ Integrator Broker Control Center (for WebSphere MQ Integrator Broker or WebSphere MQ Integrator) or the Message Brokers Toolkit (for WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker), you can build message flows from message-processing primitives to allow processing decisions to be made on either the message header or the message content. That is, the message flow can specify different processing steps for each type of message it is expected to handle.

Each business message (sent by the connector framework to the integration broker or from the integration broker to the connector framework) includes message header and message descriptor information that identifies the business object the message represents.

Before you define the message flows for the business integration system, you need to identify the business objects that will be processed from each queue. You also need to familiarize yourself with the message descriptor, message header, and message format for each type of message the message flows will process. Refer to "Interfaces for message exchange" and Appendix A, WebSphere MQ message formats for more information.

For detailed information on creating message flows, see your message broker documentation.

Transaction management

WebSphere message brokers offer distributed transaction support. Message flows can execute within a globally coordinated transaction, in which messages received from and sent to WebSphere MQ queues can be coordinated with any database updates performed during the processing of a message. Message flows can use the features of WebSphere MQ to act as a Transaction Manager to coordinate database updates within the WebSphere MQ unit of work. See your message broker's administration documentation for further information about implementing transaction management in your business integration system.

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