When you design a message flow, consider
the following questions and options:
- Which nodes provide the function that you require. In many cases, you
can choose between several nodes that provide a suitable function. You might
have to consider other factors listed here to determine which node is best
for your overall needs. You can include built-in nodes, user-defined nodes,
and subflow nodes. For more information, see Deciding which nodes to use.
- Whether it is appropriate to include more than one input node. For more
information, see Using more than one input node.
- Whether you can use subflows; for example, to define a
specific output node with common properties. For more information, see Using subflows.
- What response times your applications expect from the message flow. This
factor is influenced by several aspects of how you configure your nodes and
the message flow. For more information, see Optimizing message flow response times.
Whether your message flow processing makes demands on system
resources such as stack size. For more information, see System considerations for message flow development.
- Whether to use WebSphere MQ cluster queues.
For more information, see Using WebSphere MQ cluster queues for input and output.
- Whether to use WebSphere MQ shared queues
on z/OS. For more information, see Using WebSphere MQ shared queues for input and output (z/OS).
- Whether you want your messages to go through data conversion. The available
options are described in Configuring message flows for data conversion.
- What steps to take to ensure that messages are not lost. For more information,
see Ensuring that messages are not lost.
- How errors are handled within the message flow. You can use the facilities
provided by the broker to handle any errors that arise during message flow
execution (for example, if the input node fails to retrieve an input message,
or if writing to a database results in an error). However, you might prefer
to design your message flow to handle errors in a specific way. For more information,
see Handling errors in message flows.
For a basic introduction to developing message flows, see the IBM
Redbooks publication WebSphere Message Broker Basics.
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