WebSphere
/ MQ
MitemView is compatible with
both the WebSphere application server and WebSphere
MQ messaging technologies. Many traditional 'big blue'
shops have included MitemView in their WebSphere architecture
because it offers superior capabilities to IBM's own
host integration technology.
MitemView
extends the integration functionality of WebSphere servers
by adding the industry’s best support for non-invasive
integration with legacy systems. Even when integrating
with IBM systems (mainframe and AS/400), MitemView has
proven to be quicker to implement, have faster throughput,
and be easier to maintain than IBM’s own Host
Publisher and HATS (Host Access Transformation Services)
products.
Beyond the IBM host system environment, only MitemView
can be trusted to non-invasively integrate with other
common legacy systems like Tandem, Unisys, Bull,
ICL, Digital VAX, character-mode UNIX, Hewlett-Packard
and Data General.
Connecting
MitemView with WebSphere application servers
MITEM’s NXTier (pronounced next-tier) technology
enables a collaborative relationship to be formed between
MitemView and a Java application running on WebSphere.
A
NXTier interface consists of an NXTier delegate that
uses an NXTier runtime to form a collaboration with
a MitemView Server that has NXTier Services enabled.
Delegates are lightweight software components that install
on the WebSphere server. They are lightweight, to avoid
placing load on the server, and expose a simple interface
that is easy to configure and maintain. Delegates use
a synchronous, request/response
model to communicate between the WebSphere server and
a particular instance of MitemView. Because Delegates
follow a synchronous model, they are designed for interfacing
with multi-threaded server applications.
A
WebSphere application issues the request to the MitemView
Integration Server. A NXTier Delegate is installed on
the WebSphere server, which can be running on UNIX,
Windows, OS/390 or any other platform supported by WebSphere.
In the above example, three disparate systems are being
orchestrated, concurrently, into a new composite application.
Connecting
MitemView with WebSphere MQ
MitemView
can be used to accelerate the delivery of WebSphere
functionality by bridging the gap between MQ-enabled
and non-MQ-enabled transactions. As new MQ-enabled transactions
become available, the old terminal data stream interface
can be simply substituted without breaking the new application
logic.
MitemView natively
supports MQ messaging by fully implementing and insulating
the transport and parsing functions inside a pre-built
MitemView adapter.
This advanced
adapter offers multiple advantages over the typical
low-level, code-intensive implementations that are found
in other integration servers:
- Single-step routing and transformation of messages
- Consistent development experience across all formats
and protocols
- Substantially less programming
- Graphical interface for mapping and message processing
- Fastest message processing at runtime
- More robust error handling & recovery
- Externalization of host dependent meta-data
- Connects with 3rd party repositories
Other integration
servers that look similar to MitemView on the surface
have only crude, if any, support for messaging protocols
like MQ. Rather than normalizing the development experience
they require discrete knowledge of vendor APIs. This
low-level approach greatly increases the cost and complexity
of interfacing between multiple systems by forcing the
developer to learn the programming model for every protocol.
In contrast, a developer that knows how to use MitemView
to interface with one system automatically has all the
requisite knowledge and skills to interface with any
other.
A further defining characteristic of the MitemView framework
is the real-time processing of messages across multiple
in-bound and outbound connections. This real-time, asynchronous
processing enables maximum flexibility in n-tier server
architectures and produces superior end-to-end system
performance. MitemView performance levels meet or exceed
the near real-time performance of other messaging systems,
while eliminating the complex conditional programming
required for coordinating multiple transactions. Furthermore,
multiple host transactions can be combined, or marshaled,
into a single message thereby reducing the total number
of transactions that need to be developed and managed.
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