Configuring the WS-ReliableMessaging policy

When working with policy sets in the administrative console, you can customize some policies.

1. In the navigation pane, click Services > Policy sets > Application policy sets > policy_set_name > WS-ReliableMessaging.
   The WS-ReliableMessaging settings form is displayed.
2. Modify one or more of the following properties:

   Standard

   Select the WS-ReliableMessaging specification to use for reliable transmission of your messages. WS-ReliableMessaging Version 1.1 is the default value. Select the WS-ReliableMessaging specification to use for reliable transmission of your messages. WS-ReliableMessaging Version 1.1 is the default value. Details of the supported WS-ReliableMessaging specifications are available at the following web addresses:

   • The WS-ReliableMessaging specification Version 1.0, February 2005.
   • The OASIS WS-ReliableMessaging specification Version 1.1, February 2007.

   Note: If you plan to invoke a .NET-based web service, you must select WS-ReliableMessaging Version 1.0.

   Deliver messages in the order that they were sent

   Select this option if the sender of a request has to receive a response before it sends the next request, or if you want to enable transaction support for inbound (provider) message exchanges as described in Providing transactional recoverable messaging through WS-ReliableMessaging, or if you want to marginally increase reliability as described in A message is not recovered after a server becomes unavailable.

   Tip: When you enable this option, WS-ReliableMessaging ensures that the messages are made available to the requester application in the order that they were sent. That is, if WS-ReliableMessaging cannot make a given message available, it will not make any subsequent messages available. However, the requester application must also poll for the messages in the order in which it is to receive them. For example:

   1. WS-ReliableMessaging makes message 1 available, then message 2, then message 3.
   2. The requester application uses asynchronous polling to deliberately poll for message 2, then message 3, then message 1. All three messages are available, so this polling out of order is successful.

   Even though WS-ReliableMessaging is delivering the messages in the order that they were sent, the requester application is choosing to receive them out of order.

   Quality of service

   Select the radio button for your required quality of service. The three choices are:

   Unmanaged non-persistent

   You can configure web service applications to use WS-ReliableMessaging with a default in-memory store. This quality of service requires minimal configuration. However it is non-transactional and, although it allows for the resending of messages that are lost in the network, if a server becomes unavailable you will lose messages. This quality of service is for single server only and does not work in a cluster. This quality of service is not supported on the z/OS® platform.

   Managed non-persistent

   This in-memory quality of service option uses a messaging engine to manage the sequence state, and messages are written to disk if memory is low. This quality of service allows for the re-sending of messages that are lost in the network, and can also recover from server failure. However, state is discarded after a messaging engine restart so in this case you will lose messages. This option supports clusters as well as single servers.

   Managed persistent

   This quality of service for asynchronous web service invocations is recoverable. This option also uses a messaging engine and message store to manage the sequence state. Messages are persisted at the web service requester server and at the web service provider server, and are recoverable if the server becomes unavailable. Messages that have not been successfully transmitted when a server becomes unavailable can continue to be transmitted after the server restarts.

   The default is unmanaged non-persistent.

   Note: All three qualities of service are supported when applications are deployed to the application server. Thin client and client container applications use the first option only.

   Note: In WebSphere® Application Server Version 6.1, you could also configure whether to use the WS-MakeConnection protocol. This configuration option has now been removed from the administrative console panel, because the product now automatically determines whether WS-MakeConnection is used, based on the following criteria:

   • Whether you are using WS-ReliableMessaging Version 1.0 or Version 1.1.
   • Whether the requester supports WS-MakeConnection.
   • Whether the message exchange protocol is synchronous or asynchronous.
3. Click OK.
4. Save your changes to the master configuration.