About this Course

This 5-day instructor-led course provides an intermediate-level overview of the WebSphere Message Broker product, focusing on using WebSphere Message Broker to develop, deploy, and support platform-independent message flow applications. These applications use various messaging topologies to transport messages between service requestors and service providers, and also allow the messages to be routed, transformed, and enriched during processing.

Students learn about the components of the WebSphere Message Broker development and runtime environments. The course explores message flow problem determination, with an emphasis on identifying and recovering from errors in message flows. Students then learn how to construct message flows that use extended Structured Query Language (ESQL), Java, and PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) to transform messages. The course also explores how to control the flow of messages using various message processing nodes, and how to use databases and maps to transform and enrich messages during processing. Various messaging transports are reviewed at a high level, so that students gain a basic understanding of how message flows can use web services, Java Message Service (JMS), and other transport mechanisms. In addition, students learn to write efficient message flows by applying the concepts of message parsing, serialization, and message modeling. Finally, students explore advanced topics, such as how to extend the functionality of WebSphere Message Broker by using adapters and other WebSphere products.

Throughout the course, extensive hands-on lab exercises allow students to practice the skills and concepts that are discussed in the lectures. The hands-on labs cover topics such as creating and testing message flows, message modeling, problem determination, error handling, and using a wide range of message processing nodes to construct message flows.

Audience Profile

This course is designed for experienced integration specialists and senior-level developers with experience in application development and WebSphere MQ.

At Course Completion

Upon completing this course, students will be able to:

• Describe the WebSphere Message Broker runtime environment and toolkit architecture
• Explain the features and uses of WebSphere Message Broker
• Work with the WebSphere Message Broker Toolkit to develop, deploy, and test message flows
• Use various WebSphere Message facilities and external tools for testing and debugging message flows
• Describe the function and appropriate usage of various message processing nodes
• Choose the appropriate transformation option for a task and skills profile
• Write basic ESQL, Java methods, or PHP routines for message manipulation
• Transform messages by using mappings
• Use problem determination aids to diagnose and solve development and runtime errors
• Create and work with the self-defining Extended Markup Language (XML), predefined, and undefined data formats
• Define, use, and test simple message models
• Generate message flows from predefined patterns
• Describe supported transport protocols and how to invoke them in message flows
• Describe WebSphere Message Broker enhancements for connecting with IBM Process Server and other WebSphere products
• Explain how to extend WebSphere Message Broker functionality by using WebSphere Adapters and both user-written and off-the-shelf plug-ins
• Describe the enhanced packaged application support for SAP, Siebel, and PeopleSoft

Prerequisites

Students should have:

• A basic knowledge of WebSphere MQ
• A basic understanding of current IT technologies such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Extensible Markup Language (XML), Java, and XML Path language (XPath)
• An understanding of the business needs of their organization

Course Outline

1. Course introduction
2. Introduction to WebSphere Message Broker
3. Exercise: Creating a basic message flow
4. WebSphere Message Broker application development fundamentals
5. Exercise: Implementing a message flow using a pattern
6. Problem determination and help resources
7. Exercise: Analyzing runtime error scenarios
8. Exercise: Using problem determination tools
9. Transforming messages
10. Exercise: Implementing a message flow
11. Message flow control
12. Exercise: Using flow control in a message flow
13. Message modeling
14. Exercise: Implementing a message model
15. Additional message flow nodes
16. Exercise: Implementing additional message processing nodes
17. Message transports overview
18. Runtime-aware and dynamic message flows
19. Exercise: Creating a runtime-aware message flow
20. Extending WebSphere Message Broker functionality
21. Course summary