This glossary provides terms for
WebSphere ESB that
add to those provided for the underlying
WebSphere Application Server and
more general terms defined in the IBM Terminology Database:
- WebSphere Application Server glossaries
- IBM Terminology Database
This page consolidates the terminology from many IBM products in one
convenient location.
- Application integration environment
- One of two conceptual integrated environments that help separate the deployment
and management of applications and services from management of the underlying
server and bus environment. Applications and services are deployed into the
application integration environment, with little or no concern for their implementation
and the underlying infrastructure services provided by the server and bus
environment.
In the WebSphere administrative console, a solution administrator
can choose to apply the Application Integration task selection filter to restrict
the range of tasks to those associated with management of application integration.
- Application server
- A server program in a distributed network that provides the execution
environment for an application program.
- Augment (profiles)
- The act of upgrading a profile to another profile. For example, you can
use the profile wizard of WebSphere ESB to
augment a WebSphere Application Server profile
to become a WebSphere ESB profile.
- Authentication alias
- A Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Connector authentication
alias contains authentication data, which includes a user ID and password.
J2C authentication aliases are used to authenticate access to resource adapters
and Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) data sources.
- Bus
- See service integration bus.
- Bus destination
- A logical address to which applications can attach as a producer, consumer,
or both a producer and consumer.
- Bus environment
- One of two conceptual integrated environments that help separate the deployment
and management of applications and services from management of the underlying
server and bus environment. A solution administrator can create an environment
of ESB servers and service integration buses that support the application
integration environment. This environment is referred to as the server and
bus environment or, as a shorter term, the bus environment. The focus is on
the administration of service integration buses, servers, their resources,
the set up and management of logical administrative domains of cells and nodes,
and how to balance workload through clustering and high availability configurations.
In
the WebSphere administrative console, a solution administrator can choose
to apply the Server and Bus task selection filter to restrict the range of
tasks to those associated with management of the bus environment.
- Business function
- Some software that performs a business activity that can be abstracted
as a service.
- Bus member
- An application server or server
cluster that hosts one or more messaging engines in a service integration
bus.
- Collection page
- The type of page in the administrative console that displays a collection
list of administrative objects. From this type of page, you can typically
select objects to act on or to display other pages for.
- Common Event Infrastructure
- The Common Event Infrastructure provides facilities for the run-time environment
to persistently store and retrieve events from many different programming
environments. Events are represented using the Common Base Event model a standard,
XML-based format that defines the structure of an event.
- Custom profile
- A custom profile is an empty node that you must federate into a deployment
manager cell to make operational. In contrast to a stand-alone
server profile, a custom profile does not have a default server
on its node. Nor are there any default applications on the custom node. Federating
the custom profile changes it into a managed node.
- Data store
- The set of tables that a messaging engine uses to store persistent data in a database.
- Deployment manager
- The deployment manager is a server that provides a single administrative
interface to a logical group of application servers on one or more machines.
The logical group is known as the deployment manager cell. The
runtime environment and files for the cell are defined by the deployment
manager profile.
- Deployment manager cell
- The administrative domain of a logical group of application servers on
one or more machines that is managed by a deployment manager.
- Deployment manager profile
- The profile defines the runtime environment and includes all of the files
that the server processes in the deployment manager cell can change.
- Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
- An enterprise service bus (ESB) is a flexible connectivity infrastructure
for integrating applications and services. An ESB offers a flexible and manageable
approach to SOA implementation.
You can gain the flexibility of an SOA by
using an enterprise service bus (ESB).
Participants in a service interaction are connected to the ESB, rather than
directly to one another, helping to reduce the number, size and complexity
of interfaces required — along with the time, cost and risk — to increase
your business responsiveness.
In WebSphere ESB,
a service enterprise bus is built upon the SCA* service integration buses
for an administrative cell.
- ESB server
- A general term used to refer to an application server created from the
default WebSphere ESB template.
- Export
- Exports let a Service Component Architecture (SCA) module offer a service
to others; they define interactions between SCA modules and service requesters.
Export bindings define the specific way that an SCA module is accessed by
others.
- Export interface
- Export interfaces are abstract definitions that describe how service requesters
access an SCA module.
- Export binding
- Export bindings are concrete definitions. They specify the physical mechanism
that service requesters use to access a service. Typically, an SCA module
export has one binding specified.
- Foreign bus
- One of the other service integration buses with
which a particular service integration bus can exchange messages.
- Import
- Imports let a Service Component Architecture (SCA) module access external
services, (services that are outside the SCA module) as if they were local.
Imports define interactions between SCA modules and service providers. SCA
import bindings define the specific way that an external service is accessed;
for example, using SOAP/HTTP.
- Import binding
- Import bindings are concrete definitions. They specify the physical mechanism
that SCA modules use to access an external service; for example, using SOAP/HTTP.
- Import interface
- Import interfaces are abstract definitions that describe how an SCA module
accesses a service.
- Interaction endpoint
- A service requester or provider.
- JMS connection factory
- A set of configuration values that produces connections that enable a
J2EE component to access a JMS resource. Connection factories provide on-demand
connections from an application to an enterprise information system (EIS).
- Master configuration
- The configuration data held in a set of files that form the master
repository for either a deployment manager profile or a stand-alone
profile. For a deployment manager profile, the master configuration stores
the configuration data for all the nodes in the deployment manager cell.
- Mediation
- The action of applying service interaction logic to messages flowing across
a service integration bus, between service requesters and providers. Mediation
can perform a range of functions, including the following functions:
- Adapt message formats
- Convert transport protocols
- Route messages between services
The service interaction logic for mediation is contained in a special
type of SCA module known as a mediation module.
- Mediation flow (also known as a Mediation flow component)
- A mediation flow component contains one or more mediation primitives.
Rather than performing business functions, mediation flow components are concerned
with the flow of messages.
- Mediation module
- Mediation modules are Service Component Architecture (SCA) modules that
can change the format, content or target of service requests.
Mediation modules operate
on messages that are in flight between service requesters and service providers.
They allow you to route messages to different service providers. They also
let you transform messages: you can amend message content or form. In addition,
mediation modules can provide functions such as message logging, and error
processing that is tailored to your requirements.
Typically, mediation modules contain a specific type of SCA component called a mediation flow component.
A mediation module can
contain, at most, one mediation flow component. The purpose of a mediation module that
does not contain a mediation flow component is to transform service requests
from one format to another. For example, a service request might be made using
JMS but need transforming to SOAP/HTTP before sending on.
Mediation
modules are deployed to WebSphere ESB by
specifying the EAR (Enterprise ARchive) file using the browser-based WebSphere
administrative console, the command line, or scripts.
- Mediation primitive
- A unit of service integration logic for mediation. Mediation primitives
can be wired together as building blocks to create a mediation flow. Mediation
primitives typically function at the level of a single operation, with possible
mediation of the request (input) and response (output). Several standard mediation
primitives are provided with WebSphere Integration Developer and WebSphere ESB.
If special mediation capabilities are needed, custom mediation primitives
can be developed and deployed.
- Messaging engine
- A component of a service integration bus that provides
messaging function and a connection point to which applications connect to
the bus. A messaging engine runs within a server, that is, a WebSphere process. A messaging engine uses
an instance of a JDBC data source to interact with the database that contains
the data store for that messaging engine.
- Quality of service (QoS)
- A set of communication characteristics required by an application. QoS
defines a specific transmission priority, level of route reliability, and
security level. (IBM English Terminology Database)
- Queue destination
- A bus destination that is used for point-to-point messaging.
- SCA binding
- Bindings are concrete definitions that specify the physical mechanism
that SCA modules use to access an external service or that service requesters
use to access the SCA module.
- SCA component
- SCA components, or service components, are SCA building blocks.
You build SCA modules such as mediation modules, using SCA components. You
can create and customize SCA modules and components graphically, using WebSphere
Integration Developer.
- SCA import binding
- SCA import bindings define the specific way that an SCA module accesses
an external service; for example, using SOAP/HTTP.
- SCA module
- A module that conforms to the Service Component Architecture (SCA) with
well-defined interfaces. The module makes its function available to requesters
by exporting its interface through an Export. The module acts
as a requester to a service provider by importing the provider's requirements
through an Import. It is possible to specify another module as
a target in an import.
The modules are then packaged in a standard WebSphere
Enterprise Archive (EAR) file. An EAR file contains all the files required
to deploy the application.
- SCA request
- A service request that conforms to the Service Component Architecture
(SCA). An SCA module routes the request to a service provider, after having
done any additional processing specified by the module.
- SCA runtime
- The server functions that provide support for the Service Connection Architecture.
- Service
- A service forms an abstract representation of a business function, hiding
the specifics of the function interfaces.
Services advertise capabilities,
both offered and requested, by declaring interfaces they implement, or expect
other services to implement, and by policies governing potential partner interactions.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and other Web services standards
provide the vocabulary for these declarations. The service abstraction enables
loosely-coupled connection with service requesters, and enables the implementation
of the service to be changed without affecting requesters of the service.
- Service application
- A WebSphere application used to deploy mediation modules.
- Service Connection Architecture (SCA)
- SCA defines the model for describing service components and offers a way
to assemble them into solutions. Service Component Architecture separates
business logic from implementation, so that you can focus on assembling an
integrated application without knowing implementation details. The implementation
of services is contained in SCA components.
Service Component Architecture
enables you to group components within an SCA module, and specify
which services are exposed by the module to outside requesters.
- Service Data Objects (SDO)
- An open
standard for enabling applications to handle data from heterogeneous data
sources such as relational databases, XML data sources, Web services, and
enterprise information systems in a uniform way. SDO is based on the concept
of disconnected data graphs. Under the
disconnected data graphs architecture, a client retrieves a data graph from
a data source, mutates the data graph, and can then apply the data graph
changes back to the data source
- Service integration bus
- A component that supports applications using message-based
and service-oriented architectures. A bus is a group of interconnected servers
and clusters that have been added as members of the bus. Applications connect
to a bus at one of the messaging engines associated with its bus members.
- Service integration bus link
- A link between messaging engines on different service integration buses.
This enables requests and messages to pass between the buses.
- Service integration logic
- Integration logic on an enterprise service bus to mediate between requesters
and providers. The logic performs a number of functions such as to transform
and augment requests, converts transport protocols, and route requests and
replies automatically
- Service integration technologies
- The service integration functionality within WebSphere Application Server
that provides a highly-flexible messaging system for a service-oriented architecture.
This supports a wide spectrum of quality of service options, protocols, and
messaging patterns. It supports both message-oriented and service-oriented
applications.
- Service Message Object (SMO)
- Service message objects (SMOs) are enhanced Service Data Objects (SDOs).
SMO provides an abstraction layer for processing and manipulating messages
exchanged between services.
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- An architecture where services represent business functions
as components that can be reused and combined. A Service-oriented architecture
(SOA) combines adaptable connections with well-defined, standards-based interfaces
to help you build flexibility into your existing infrastructure. In an SOA,
you can reuse services extensively regardless of whether they are based on
new services implementations or existing IT assets.
- Service provider
- A service provider is a program that provides a business function as a
service through an enterprise service bus. The service provider receives messages
from a service requester and runs the requested service. The service provider
might also send messages back through the bus in reply to the request.
- Service requester
- A service requester is a program that requests the business functions
provided as a service by another program. The requester sends
a request message over an enterprise service bus to a service provider.
- Stand-alone server profile
- The profile defines the runtime environment and includes all of the files
that the stand-alone server process can change.
A stand-alone server profile
has its own administrative console and all of the sample applications (if
you installed the Sample applications gallery feature). Each stand-alone server
is fully operational and is managed independently from all other servers.
- Stand-alone server
- A server managed independently from all other servers. A stand-alone server
has its own administrative console and all of the sample applications (if
you installed the Sample applications gallery feature).
- Topology
- A physical arrangement of application servers, messaging
engines and WebSphere MQ queue managers and the pattern of bus connections
and links between them.