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Application logging using solidDB, WebSphere Message Broker, and DB2 pureXML

How to set up an infrastructure for application logging

Daniel G. Schall, IBM Intern, IBM

Daniel Schall studies applied computer science at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Until Mar 2009, he was an intern at IBM, working with Henrik Loeser on Application Logging. Currently, he is working on his diploma thesis.

Dr. Henrik Loeser, pureXML Storage Architect for DB2 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows, IBM

Henrik Loeser is the pureXML Storage Architect for DB2 on Linux, UNIX, and Windows, living in Germany at the Lake of Constance since Spring 2008. Before that he was the development manager and technical lead for DB2 pureXML Storage and Index in IBM's Silicon Valley Laboratory where he enjoyed 7 years in sunny California as DB2 developer. Henrik speaks frequently at conferences, at customer sites and user group meetings. He holds both a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, and sold his first software at age 15. Henrik can be reached at hloeser@de.ibm.com, his blog is at http://blog.4loeser.net.

Summary: Because of its flexibility and its presence in many application environments, XML is becoming the preferred log format. This tutorial shows how to easily set up an application logging environment by bringing the XML features of IBM® WebSphere® and IBM DB2® together. This tutorial first introduces a simple application logging scenario, then shows how to use IBM solidDB® to cache and decouple the application from the logging infrastructure. Use WebSphere Message Queue and WebSphere Message Broker to reliably move the log messages from the application to DB2, where they can be stored and queried using the pureXML® functionality. To normalize different message formats, use WebSphere Message Broker to transform log files to other XML formats prior to storing them in DB2.

Date: 07 May 2009
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (2037 KB | 58 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 23216 views
Comments:

Conclusion

This tutorial has shown you how to set up an infrastructure for application logging using several IBM products. IBM solidDB acts as an in-memory cache to decouple the application from the logging infrastructure. WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Message Broker are used to ship, analyze, and transform XML messages. Finally, DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows and its pureXML feature are used to efficiently store and manage the XML data. There is no single product that offers the full logging infrastructure, but, as shown here, it is possible to build such an application logging infrastructure quickly. XML is at the core because it gives the flexibility to change and add to the message formats without impacting the infrastructure itself. Using DB2 with its SQL/XML and XQuery support, the XML data can be queried for failure analysis or auditing purposes.