Using WS-Policy to configure WS-ReliableMessaging

My good friend Eleanor Harley sent me this link to 'Real Snail Mail' the other day. It seems like a fantastic idea; probably carbon neutral although arguably not the simplest thing that could possibly work. It is however an entertaining use case for WS-ReliableMessaging which I have been working on for WebSphere Application Server v7.0. Those snail's squish very easily, and without your Acknowledgement snail you'd never know if that vital message was delivered, or had come under some salty security attack.

Did I mention that WS-ReliableMessaging has just shipped in WebSphere Application Server v7.0? Previously delivered as part of the Web Services Feature Pack for WebSphere Application Server v6.1, the function has been enhanced by conformance to the WS-I Reliable Secure Profile and the impact of WS-Policy on configuring WS-ReliableMessaging.

Using WS-Policy with WS-ReliableMessaging provides improved levels of flexibility on when this quality of service is applied to your Web Service messages. We have introduced a new 'strictlyEnforceWSRM' property that can be applied to the client and the service.

It enables you to chose whether your service and client want to enforce Reliable Messaging or simply support Reliable Messaging. WS-Policy then determines what the common configuration option is between the client and server. For example, if your server policy states that it supports WS-ReliableMessaging , and the client is configured to enforce WS-ReliableMessaging , then WS-ReliableMessaging will be used. However, if the client has no WS-ReliableMessaging configured then the server will not use it.

Finally, unlike Real Snail Mail, we have been working hard on WS-ReliableMessaging performance this release as well. I hope you'll appreciate the results.