How do I design and develop a message model?

New users: how to design and create message models.

If the format of the messages that you want to use with your applications is not self-defining, you must create a message model that defines the structure of your messages. If your messages are self-defining, you might want to create a message model to take advantage of runtime validation of messages, reuse of messages, and code completion on the message structure when you use ESQL. If you want to use message mapping, you must also create a message model for your messages.

You can obtain prebuilt models for common industry standard message formats such as SWIFT, EDIFACT, ISO8583, FIX, HL7, and TLOG to use with IBM® App Connect Enterprise. You can also create message models from C header files, COBOL copybooks, XML Schema and DTDs, and WSDL files. Alternatively, you can use the Message Model editor in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit to create your own message models.

For further information, read the logical and physical message structure sections in What do I need to know to start developing applications?.

What is a message model?

A message model is used by IBM App Connect Enterprise to model a message format. The message models that are used by IBM App Connect Enterprise are all based on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) XML Schema 1.0 (XSD). For more information about message models, see Message modeling overview.

How do I create and configure a message model?

You can model a wide variety of message formats by using XML Schema files, DFDL schema files, message sets, and WebSphere® Adapters. For more information about creating and configuring message models, see Constructing message models.