What Clients Do I Get with WebSphere ESB?

Soaandesb Websphere
2006-07-11

So it’s Christmas morning, and you’ve unwrapped the shiny paper, and you see that Santa has left you a copy of WebSphere ESB 6.0.1. You’re keen to get going on developing your first SOA solution, but you’re a little bemused by the ‘Message Service Clients’ inside the jiffy bag, on CD2. Well, here’s what they are:

These packages allow you to build client code that can be used against a WebSphere ESB system (as well as other messaging systems).

The XMS clients are essentially re-implementations of the JMS API in their respective programming environments: C/C++, and .Net. They are designed to match the JMS API as closely as possible, and are thus useful for client developers who are already familiar with JMS. The clients can work with three different JMS provider families:

These families use different wire protocols for the JMS messages, so the family being used has to be specified in the client application. Otherwise, though, the API is identical.

The WSCC client is slightly different: it allows one to write a web services client in C++ from an existing WSDL web service specification (such as one produced by ESB when one uses a Web Services Export in a mediation module, for example). Typically this is done using the supplied WSDL2Ws tool to create stubs that can be used to create the client.

The clients are also available as IBM SupportPacs for download, although you’ll want to check the licensing conditions for your support status when using these.

(Note: the ‘Application Client for WebSphere Applications Server’ is also shipped with WebSphere ESB, although, as the name implies, this isn’t specific to ESB - it’s the same client available with WAS). For more information, see: