IBM WebSphere Message Broker Interview Questions and Answers

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1.What are the main components of IIB/WMB?

Ans:

The 3 main components in IIB/WMB are Runtime, Development and Administration.

• Runtime: The broker runtime is the main processing component to which development      artifacts are deployed.
• Development: The Toolkit is used for development of message flows and other development artifacts.
• Administration: Message Broker Explorer is an administration tool used to perform deploys, create brokers or new execution groups, and enable flow monitoring. WMB V8 provides a WebUI tool to view the broker runtime or resources deployed in a browser.

2.Does IIB/WMB require a database to function?

Ans:

There is no database prerequisite, the product does not require a database for any internal function. You may have database nodes or use databases for other functions and so Message Broker does provide functionality to interface with application databases.

3.Difference between RAD and ORDINARY deployment?

Ans:

Using Resource adapter deployment, we can reuse the deployment till the server is re- booted

4.What is PARSER and difference between PARSER and FORMAT?

Ans:

• A Parser is defined as a program that interprets the bit stream of an incoming message and creates an internal representation of it in a tree structure Ex: MRM parser
• A Format is a physical representation of a message.Ex: XML wire format

5.What is the uniqueness of MB over ICS?

Ans:

Parallel processing

6.What is EAI? What are those tools?

Ans:

Enterprise Application Integration refers to the integration of one or more applications and processes together.

Tools:

WBI Message Broker, ICS, WebMethods and Tibco

7.What is the Broker Domain?

Ans:

Group of brokers that coordinate a single configuration manager constitute a Broker Domain

8.What error is going to occur when we didn’t specify the queue name in the MInput node?

Ans:

• 0
• The Error message is “Unset mandatory ‘name Name’ Property on node ‘MInput’ “.

9.How to call the method or function in the coding

Ans:

Using the call keyword.

10.Difference between MCA and MI channels?

Ans:

• A message channel connects two queue managers via message channel agents (MCAs). Such a channel is unidirectional. It comprises two message channel agents, a sender and a receiver, anda communication protocol. An MCA is a program that transfers messages from a transmission queue to a communication link, and from a communication link into the target queue.
• For bidirectional communication, you must define two channel pairs consisting of a sender and a receiver. A Message queue Interface (MI) channel connects an MSeries client to a queue manager in its server machine. Clients don’t have a queue manager of their own. An MI channel is bidirectional.

11. Difference between Root and Output Root?

Ans:

Root is used in the Database content changing and in Filter node.Output Root is used in the ESL code for a Compute node that creates a new output message based on the input message

12. Is it possible to set Properties of nodes apart from right clicking and setting the properties?

Ans:

Windows à Show View à Basic à Properties.

13. Which interface do we have to implement when we are going to create an input custom node?

Ans:

MbInputNodeInterface

14. Define BROKER, BAR, EXECUTION GROUP, SCADA, and COMPONENTS OF BROKER?

Ans:

• BROKER: A broker is a set of execution processes that hosts one or more message flows to route, transform, and enrich in-flight messages.
• BAR: Flows and sets that are to be deployed are packed in it and sent to configuration manager
• EXECUTION GROUP: An execution group is a named grouping of message flows that have been assigned to a broker. The broker enforces a degree of isolation between message flows in distinct execution groups by ensuring that they execute in separate address Ans:s, or as unique processes.
• SCADA: The SCADAInput node is used to receive messages from clients that connect to the broker across the WebSphere M Telemetry Transport. SCADA device clients use the MIsdp protocol to send messages, which are converted by the SCADAInput node into a format recognized by WebSphere Message Broker. The node also establishes the processing environment for these messages.
• COMPONENTS OF BROKER: Broker, Configuration manager, User name service.

15. What is ResetContentDescriptor node?

Ans:

Use the ResetContentDescriptor node to request that the message is repaired by a different parser.

16. What is User name Server and where it is defined?

Ans:

The User Name Server is an optional runtime component that provides authentication of users and groups performing publish/subscribe operations.

17. What is SCHEMA of brokers?

Ans:

A broker schema is a symbol Ans: that defines the scope of uniqueness of the names of resources defined within it. The resources are message flows, ESL files, and mapping files.

18. How can we see the error log files in the broker?

Ans:

The Windows Event Viewer is where WebSphere Message Broker writes records to the local system.

19.How will we use a Cobol copybook in MB?

Ans:

COBOL copybook files, using either the New Message Definition File wizard or the mqsicreatebar command line utility.

20. What are Types of messages?

Ans:

• MRM
• XML
• XMLNS
• XMLNSC
• JMSMap
• JMSStream
• MIME
• BLOB
• IDOC

21.How many types of clients in M?

Ans:

Two Typesà Fat Clientsà Slim clients

22.Difference between MPUT and MPUT1?

Ans:

• MPUT ( MYSTATE, MMD, MPMO,BUFFER): Adds a message to the queue.
• The buffer cannot be more than 32767 bytes, but that restriction does not apply if you are using the EGL add statement. MPUT1(MYSTATE, MOD, MMD, MPMO, BUFFER): Opens a queue, writes a single message, and closes the queue.

23.Can we use MPUT1 in java?

Ans:

Yes, we can use

24.What formats MB support?

Ans:

• XML, TDS, CWF, EDI, SWIFT
• Where do you place the pass-thru node in message flow?In the sub flows immediately to the input node.

25. What are the Features of Message Brokers?

Ans:

• Routing,
• Transformation
• Integration

26.What is CVS (Concurrent Version System)?

Ans:

It is a repository that will store the previous versions.

27.Difference between compute and mapping nodes?

Ans:

In the computer node, we can change the headers but in the Mapping node we can’t change.

28. What are the Types of queues in M?

Ans:

Local ueueRemote ueu Transmission ueu Alias ueu Dead letter queue.

29. Which node is used to change the message in the flow?

Ans:

Compute Node, Filter Node and ResetContentDescriptor.

30. What is the use of commit for connection to Databases?

Ans:

Any work that has been done using the respective data source in a message flow (including any actions taken in the node) is committed regardless of the subsequent success or failure of the message flow

31. Define Correlation names?

Ans:

A correlation name is a field reference that identifies a well-defined starting point in the logical message tree and is used in field references to describe a standard part of the tree format.

32. MInput node and INPUT node differences?

Ans:

• You must use an Input node to provide the in terminal to a subflow.
• The Input node provides an in terminal for an embedded message flow (a subflow).

33. How many Built-in nodes are there? Categories?

Ans:

WebSphere Message Broker supplies built-in nodes that you can use to define your message flows. 

34. What are the perspectives we have?

Ans:

• Administration Perspective
• Application Development Perspective
• Debugging Perspective.
• Java Perspective (MB 6.0).

35. In which perspective we deploy the flow?

Ans:

Administrator perspective

36. How to create Broker from Command prompt?

Ans:

Using mqsicreatebroker command.

37. Use of Configuration manager?

Ans:

To deploy the message flows onto the Broker.12

38.How can you interact with Database using Compute nodes?

Ans:

Specify in Data Source the name by which the appropriate database is known on the system on which this message flow is to execute.

39.What is an Execution Group?

Ans:

An execution group is a named grouping of message flows that have been assigned to a broker.

40.When to use HTTP input node and when Soap input?

Ans:

We use HTTP and SOAP input nodes to interact with WEB services, to decide which node to use when we can consider points below:
HTTP Input:

• If we want to use different messaging domains like XMLNSC, JSON, BLOB, MRM then we use HTTP input nodes.
• If we are not using WS-Addressing or WS-Security Then it is better to use HTTP input instead of SOAP input node.

41. When we hit any backend where all queue or backend details are stored?

Ans:

To hit or call any backend  system from a message broker we need host Urls or queues, and we store all these details in our database  and at runtime we retrieve those details to make a call to the Host System.

42. When to use HTTP input nodes and when Soap input?

Ans:

We use HTTP and SOAP input nodes to interact with WEB services, to decide which node to use when we can consider points below:

HTTP Input:

• If we want to use different messaging domains like XMLNSC, JSON, BLOB, MRM then we use HTTP input nodes.
• If we are not using WS-Addressing or WS-Security Then it is better to use HTTP input instead of SOAP input node.

SOAP Input:

• If the incoming message is SOAP based, SOAP with Attachments (SwA) or Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) message then we use SOAP node.
• If we are having a WSDL file to validate or checking our message then we use SOAP input Node.
• It supports WS-Addressing and WS-Security.

43. Why is the Message set used?

Ans:

Message Sets are used for message modelling in WMB for different types of messages, we can use message sets to validate incoming messages to check if it is in desired format or not.

44. IDoc parser function?

Ans:

IDoc Parsing

45. How to create an Asynchronous scenario in MB, which nodes you will use?

Ans:

• Asynchronous scenario: When we are making a request and not waiting for a reply or response, and proceed to make another request. In this case our Message flow doesn’t wait for a response from the backend system and process other incoming requests.
• We can achieve this by using M Nodes, like M output and MGet nodes, so we can put messages in the output queue and process other incoming messages.

46. What are different types of variables in MB? External and Shared variables?

Ans:

here are three types of variables in esl:

NORMAL, EXTERNAL and SHARED

Normal:

• These variables have a lifetime of only one message passing through the node and initialise again for the next message.

EXTERNAL:

• These variables are declared with a keyword ‘EXTERNAL’

DECLARE EXTNVAR EXTERNAL CHARACTER:

• This is also called User Defined Properties (UDP), because we can assign a default value to them in message flow UDP or we can set at deployment time in Broker Archive editor, also we can assign new value at runtime by using IBM integration API.
•  These variables have a lifetime of the entire message passing through the flow.
•  These are declared at the module level or schema level. We can’t declare EXTERNAL variables inside a module or a function or a procedure.

SHARED:

• These variables are declared with a keyword ‘SHARED’

DECLARE SHARVAR SHARED CHARACTER:

• These are used for caching in MB, Cache is a temporary memory which we use to store data so we can use it in flow rather than fetching it again and again from database.(I will describe it with examples in next post)
•  These are also called long lived variables as they initialise when the first message passes through the node and remain visible to other messages.

47.What is the difference between XMLNS and XMLNSC, why do we use XMLNSC?

Ans:

• XMLNS and XMLNSC both are used for Parsing XML messages but there are some advantages in using XMLNSC over XMLNS as:
• XMLNSC parser is compact and uses low memory then XMLNS.
• XMLNSC can provide validation as we can apply message set validation if using XMLNSC, not in case of XMLNS.

48.How Caching is used in WMB?

Ans:

Caching can be implemented using SHARED variables in WMB. 

49.Execution group is a process or a thread?

Ans:

Execution group is grouping of message flows. It provides isolation between them and executes flows in separate address Ans:s. It is a Unique process.

50. What are the software requirements for IIB/WMB?

Ans:

The complete product software requirements and prerequisites are available on the System Requirements Page.

51. Where can I find more information about IIB/WMB?

Ans:

IIB/WMB product documentation can be found in the Library which provides product Information Centers for each of the current releases. See the IBM Integration Bus Library page or the WMB Product Library page. Each Information Center can be viewed online or through a downloadable version.

52. How do I install IIB/WMB?

Ans:

IIB/WMB installation comprises installing a Broker component, the Tookit and Message Broker explorer. On Windows all three components can be installed using Windows Launchpad that is provided with the product. On Unix platforms, installation can be performed through an installation wizard or in silent mode. On z/OS, the installation is performed using SMP/E.

53. Getting started with IIB/WMB. Is there a default configuration of IIB/WMB that I can use?

Ans:

Yes. IIB/WMB provides a default configuration. This can be started through the Toolkit Welcome screen. The default configuration wizard creates a broker and all the resources required.

54. Where can I find training and education on setting up and using the IIB/WMB Product?

Ans:

The IBM Education Assistant site has a number of education modules across multiple Message Broker releases. See the IBM Education Assistant: IBM Integration Bus page

IBM Education also offers courses on IIB. See this list of IIB courses being offered.

55. Where can I find samples for IIB/WMB?

Ans:

A comprehensive set of samples are provided with IIB/WMB. These samples can be found on the Toolkit Welcome page. The samples cover basic concepts as well as advanced areas like WebServices File processing, Monitoring etc. 

56. Are there IBM forums or user groups available for IIB/WMB users?

Ans:

The following forums and user groups are available for Message Broker.

•  mseries.net forum – This forum is active with participation by the Message Broker user community.
•  IBM developerWorks forum

57. How do I create a broker?

Ans:

A broker can be created using Message Broker explorer or from the command line. Specific information on creating a broker is available in the online Information Center under the topic Configuring brokers for test and production > Configuring brokers

Creating a broker.

58. What are the major processes for a running broker?

Ans:

 Once a broker is started, the following processes get started and they can be seen in Task Manager (on Windows) and/or ps listing (on UNIX’s). On z/OS these processes run under the USS.

• bipservice – This is a bootstrap process that starts the broker runtime
• bipbroker – This main administration that manages the broker runtime.
• biphttplistener – This is the http server process that provides HTTP and SOAP functionality in Message Broker
• DataFlowEngine – This is the Execution Group process which runs message flow threads. Each message flow runs in this process as a thread.

59. Are there any monitoring tools available in IIB/WMB?

Ans:

Business level monitoring can be configured in IIB/WMB message flows that enables the different nodes in the message flow to emit events when processing messages. These events can be further fed to other applications such as WebSphere Business Monitor for transaction monitoring, transaction auditing, and business process monitoring. More information can be found in the online Information Center under the topic Performance and monitoring > Business-level monitoring

60. What are the High availability options available in IIB/WMB?

Ans:

• Message Broker can be set up to work with the following High Availability options:
• Multi-instance mode using multi-instance queue manager
• Existing High Availability manager/Windows cluster such as HACMP or MSCS cluster

61. What are the backup and recovery procedures for IIB/WMB?

Ans:

The details may be found in the online Information Center under the topic Administering existing brokers > Backing up resources

62. Are there any existing message flow patterns/templates that I can use to design my message flows?

Ans:

Built-in patterns are supplied with the IIB/WMB Toolkit to create resources that are used to solve specific business problems You can also create user-defined patterns by using the pattern creation templates provided with IIB/WMB Toolkit.

Patterns are available to a pattern user in the Patterns Explorer view in the Broker Application Development perspective of the IIB/WMB Toolkit.

63. How do I migrate from a previous version to the newer version?

Ans:

You can migrate in two different ways:

• Import all the development artifacts into the Message Broker Toolkit which will migrate them as necessary and deploy them to the new version runtime.Migrate only the runtime by using the mqsimigratecomponents command.
• For example, mqsimigratecomponents <broker> -s <source version> -t <target version>The details may be found in the online Information Center under the topic Reference > Configuration and administration > Commands > Runtime commands > mqsimigratecomponents command

64. Where can I find the latest Fix Pack for IIB/WMB?

Ans:

A Fix Pack may be downloaded from the following page Recommended fixes for WebSphere Message Broker.

65. When is the next Fix Pack available?

Ans:

It does not  conform .See the WebSphere Message Broker planned Fix Pack release schedule so that you may know the exact next fix pack.

66. Where are the security features provided in IIB/WMB?

Ans:

IIB/WMB provides a number of security features.

67. List any five  built in modes ?

Ans:

• REAL-TIME OPTIMIZED FLOW NODE
• INPUT NODE
• OUTPUT NODE
• JMSINPUT NODE
• JMSOUTPUT

68. What is the latest version available in WebSphere Message Broker?

Ans:

8.0

69. Explain what is Scada?

Ans:

The SCADAInput node is used to receive messages from clients that connect to the broker across the WebSphere M Telemetry Transport. SCADA device clients use the MIsdp protocol to send messages, which are converted by the SCADAInput node into a format recognized by WebSphere Message Broker. The node also establishes the processing environment for these messages.

70.What is EAI ?

Ans:

Enterprise Application Integration refers to the integration of one or more applications to process together.                                                    The act of combining (or adding or Merging) parts to make a unified system.

71.What are the versions of IIB ?

Ans:

• WebSphere Message Broker Version 7.0.
• WebSphere Message Broker Version 8.0.
• IBM Integration Bus Version 9.0.
• IBM Integration Bus Version 10.0
• IBM App Connect

72.If you have 10000 records file to Fileinput node then how can you split and send to the next node?

Ans:

We need to set properties in Records and Elements that is whether we have to take the Whole File or Fixed Length or Delimited and assign the remaining properties according to it.

73.Deploy command ?

Ans:

msideploy -n b1.broker -e default -a mybar.bar -m -w 600

74.Can we connect to multiple Databases in Esl ?

Ans:

No, you can not access 2 different data sources of different types (ie: DB2 & Oracle) within a single compute node. You can only access 2 different data sources within a single compute node if the 2 data sources are of the same type. But even then, the 2 data sources should be at the same version of code since they will all be called through the same driver. I verified this with the WMB/IIB Level3 team.

75.How to increase performance in ESL or ESL code tips ?

Ans:

When you write your ESL code, you can use several techniques to improve the performance of your message flows. The following sections contain guidance about how to improve the performance of your ESL code:

• ESL array processing
• ESL CARDINALITY function
• ESL DECLARE and EVAL statements
• ESL PASSTHRU statement
• ESL reference variables
• ESL string functions
• Message trees with repeating records

76.What is Transactionality ?

Ans:

A set of activities that are executed under a single unit of work.

77.What is JMS ?

Ans:

JMS (Java Message Service) is an API that provides the facility to create, send and read messages. It provides loosely coupled, reliable and asynchronous communication.
For More Info : https://www.javatpoint.com/jms-tutorial

78.What are default depths of the queues?

Ans:

Local queue Depth : 0, Remote queue Depth : 0

79.What are Configurable Services ?

Ans:

Configurable services are typically runtime propertiesInstead of defining properties on the node or message flow, you can create configurable services so that nodes and message flows can refer to them to find properties at run time.

If you use this method, you can change the values of attributes for a configurable service on the broker, which then affects the behaviour of a node or message flow without the need for redeployment.For most types of configurable service, your changes will take effect from the next time a message flow that uses the configurable service is called.

For some types of configurable service, for which it is explicitly stated in the documentation, you must stop and start the integration server for the change to take effect.

80.What is trace? Type of traces?

Ans:

Trace node to generate trace records that you can use to monitor the behavior of a message flow

• User Trace
• Service Trace
• User trace is inactive by default; you must activate it explicitly by using a command, or by selecting options in the IBM Integration Toolkit
• Linux and UNIX : /var/msi/common/log
• z/OS : /component_filesystem/log

81.What is Debug Tracing ?

Ans:

Open a command prompt window.

• Execute the command mqsichangetrace <Broker> -u -e default -l debug -c 5000
• Execute the message flow with the message that you want to trace.
• Execute the command mqsireadlog <Broker> -u -e default -o trace.xml
• Execute the command msi format log –i  trace.xml -to trace.log
• Open the generated Trace files in a text editor and perform diagnosis.

82.What is the Difference between Compute and JavaCompuenode  ?

Ans:

Compute nodes are comparatively faster in performance compared to JavaCompute nod

83What is Thrownode ?

Ans:

 It is present in the Construction drawer of the palette, used to throw an exception in a message flow.
If the content of the message contains unexpected data.
For example, to back out a message that does not contain a particular field, you can check (using a Filter node) that the field exists; if the field does not exist, the message can be passed to a Throw nodeInclude a Throw node with a TryCatch node in your message flow to alert the systems administrator of a potential error situation; for example, if you have a Compute node that calculates a number, test the result of this calculation and throw an exception if the result exceeds a certain amount. The TryCatch node catches this exception and propagates the message to a sequence of nodes that process the error.

84.What is File Info ?

Ans:

The broker reads files with the FileInput, FTEInput, CDInput, and FileRead nodes, and writes files with the FileOutput, CDOutput, and FTEOutput nodes.You can use the FTEInput and FTEOutput nodes to receive or send files to a destination on a WebSphere M File Transfer Edition network.FileInput node creates an msi transit in subdirectory in the input directory. The mistransit in subdirectory holds and locks the input files while they are being processed. The broker reads the file and propagates a message, or messages, by using the contents of the file.

85.Write the compute node code for XML to CSV ?

Ans:

86.What is the compute node code for CSV to XML ?

Ans:

We have to define in the M input node properties the Message set which is given as reference to the project and the Message Type and Message format. So we don’t just need to create the output structure in the code by taking the input values.

87.What are Connectiontype and Protocol ?

Ans:

Properties:

• connectionType – Valid values are ACTIVE or PASSIVE. is valid only when FTP is specified as the protocol. If SFTP is specified, this property is ignored.
• The default is PASSIVE, which is more likely to be tolerated by most types of firewall protection that allow the client to log in.
• If you set this property to ACTIVE, this refers to a socket that is established by the remote server to the client (the broker message flow)
• protocol – The remote transfer protocol to use. Valid values are FTP or SFTP. If no protocol is specified in the configurable service, the value specified in the node is used.

88.What is Application ? How is it different from an Integration Project ?

Ans:

An application is a container for all the resources that are required to create a solution. An application can contain IBM Integration Bus resources, such as flows, message definitions, libraries, and JAR files. In Application we can’t deploy the flows individually whereas in Integration projects we can deploy individually.

89.What is Library ?

Ans:

The use of a library helps organizations by grouping reusable resources together. This library can also be used by other applications, services, libraries, or integration projects.

90.What is an Integration Project ?

Ans:

An integration project is a specialized container in which you create and maintain all the resources associated with one or more message flows. Integration project can contain the following resources

• Message flows
• Subflows
• Message maps
• ESL files
• Database definitions
• BAR files
• Test Clients
• You cannot create schema files in an integration project; you can create them in an application or library only.
• Integration projects are shown in the Independent Resources folder in the Application Development view

91.Drawback of Library used in WMB 8 / IIB 9 ?

Ans:

WMB v8 introduced Static library any changes made to these reusable artifacts (Common Error Handling framework / logging framework) always resulted in the need to re-deploy all applications / services.IIB v10 has addressed this concern / problem by introducing Shared Libraries. Now the Applications / Services do not take a copy of the Shared Library within themselves. As the Shared Libraries are deployed directly at the Integration Server level.

92.Advantages of Shared Libraries ?

Ans:

Shared Libraries can be added to the BAR file independently of referencing Applications / ServicesDeployment of updated Shared Library results in the changes immediately picked up by all referencing applications / services at run-time. Hence no need to redeploy all referencing applications / services. When a shared library is updated, changes are available immediately to all applications or shared libraries that refer to it.

93.Tell me about CopyMessageHeaders and CopyEntireMessage?

Ans:

• CALL CopyMessageHeaders();
• Received Properties and MMD only in Message tree structure.CALL CopyEntireMessage();
• Received Properties and MMD, XMLNSC alsoIf we omit above two methods then we received only PROPERTIES

94.What is a Message Model ?

Ans:

Message model’ is the generic term for an IIB artifact that describes a set of message formats. A message model is just a message description document, without a specific container. It can be added to any kind of Broker container, like an application, or a library, or a service or the “default” application that is used when you think you haven’t created an application.