Configuring and Managing WebLogic JMS

Configuring Advanced JMS System Resources

These sections provide information on configuring advanced WebLogic JMS resources, such as a distributed destination in a clustered environment:

Configuring WebLogic JMS Clustering

A WebLogic Server cluster is a group of servers in a domain that work together to provide a more scalable, more reliable application platform than a single server. A cluster appears to its clients as a single server but is in fact a group of servers acting as one.

Advantages of JMS Clustering

The advantages of clustering for JMS include the following:

For more information about the features and benefits of using WebLogic clusters, see Understanding WebLogic Server Clustering in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

How JMS Clustering Works

An administrator can establish cluster-wide, transparent access to JMS destinations from any server in a cluster, either by using the default connection factories for each server instance in a cluster, or by configuring one or more connection factories and targeting them to one or more server instances in a cluster, or to an entire cluster. This way, each connection factory can be deployed on multiple WebLogic Servers. For information on configuring and deploying connection factories, see Connection Factory Configuration Parameters.

The application uses the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) to look up a connection factory and create a connection to establish communication with a JMS server. Each JMS server handles requests for a set of destinations. If requests for destinations are sent to a WebLogic Server instance that is hosting a connection factory, but which is not hosting a JMS server or destinations, the requests are forwarded by the connection factory to the appropriate WebLogic Server instance that is hosting the JMS server and destinations.

The administrator can also configure multiple JMS servers on the various servers in the cluster—as long as the JMS servers are uniquely named—and can then target JMS queue or topic resources to the various JMS servers. The application uses the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) to look up a connection factory and create a connection to establish communication with a JMS server. Each JMS server handles requests for a set of destinations. Requests for destinations not handled by a JMS server are forwarded to the appropriate WebLogic Server instance. For information on configuring and deploying JMS servers, see JMS Server Configuration.

JMS Clustering Naming Requirements

There are naming requirements when configuring JMS objects and resources, such as JMS servers, JMS modules, and JMS resources, to work in a clustered environment in a single WebLogic domain or in a multi-domain environment. For more information, see JMS Configuration Naming Requirements.

Distributed Destination Within a Cluster

A distributed destination resource is a single set of destinations (queues or topics) that are accessible as a single, logical destination to a client (for example, a distributed topic has its own JNDI name). The members of the unit are usually distributed across multiple servers within a cluster, with each member belonging to a separate JMS server. Applications that use distributed destinations are more highly available than applications that use simple destinations because WebLogic Server provides load balancing and failover for member destinations of a distributed destination within a cluster. For more information, see Configuring Distributed Destination Resources.

JMS Services As a Migratable Service Within a Cluster

In addition to being part of a whole server migration, where all services hosted by a server can be migrated to another machine, JMS services are also part of the singleton service migration framework. This allows an administrator, for example, to migrate a JMS server and all of its destinations to migrate to another WebLogic Server within a cluster in response to a server failure or for scheduled maintenance. For more information on JMS service migration, see Migration of JMS-related Services.

Configuration Guidelines for JMS Clustering

In order to use WebLogic JMS in a clustered environment, follow these guidelines:

What About Failover?

If a server or network failure occurs, JMS message producer and consumer objects will attempt to transparently failover to another server instance, if one is available. In WebLogic Server release 9.1 or later, WebLogic JMS message producers automatically attempt to reconnect to an available server instance without any manual configuration or changes to existing client code. In WebLogic Server release 9.2 or later, you can use the Administration Console or WebLogic JMS APIs to configure WebLogic JMS message consumers to attempt to automatically reconnect to an available server instance. See Automatic Failover for JMS Clients in Programming WebLogic JMS.

In addition, implementing the service migration feature ensures that exactly-once services, like JMS, do not introduce a single point of failure for dependent applications in the cluster. See Migration of JMS-related Services. WebLogic Server also supports data migration at the server level—a complete server instance, and all of the services it hosts can be migrated to another machine, either automatically, or manually. See Server Migration in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

In a clustered environment, WebLogic Server also offers service continuity in the event of a single server failure by allowing you to configure distributed destinations, where the members of the unit are usually distributed across multiple servers within a cluster, with each member belonging to a separate JMS server. See Distributed Destination Within a Cluster.

BEA also recommends implementing high-availability clustering software, such as VERITAS™ Cluster Server, which provides an integrated, out-of-the-box solution for WebLogic Server-based applications. Another recommended high-availability software solution is IBM HACMP or the equivalent.

Migration of JMS-related Services

JMS-related services are singleton services, and, therefore, are not active on all server instances in a cluster. Instead, they are pinned to a single server in the cluster to preserve data consistency. To ensure that singleton JMS services do not introduce a single point of failure for dependent applications in the cluster, migratable JMS services can be manually migrated if the host server fails. JMS services can also be manually migrated before performing scheduled server maintenance.

Migratable JMS-related services include:

You can configure JMS-related services for high availability by using migratable targets. A migratable target is a special target that can migrate from one server in a cluster to another. As such, a migratable target provides a way to group migratable services that should move together. When the migratable target is migrated, all services hosted by that target are migrated.

See Understanding the Service-level Migration Framework in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Manual Migration JMS Services

An administrator can manually migrate JMS-related services to a healthy server if the host server fails or before performing server maintenance. For more information about configuring manual migration of JMS-related services, see Roadmap for Configuring Manual Migration of JMS-Related Services in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Persistent Store High Availability

As discussed in What About Failover?, a JMS service, including a custom persistent store, can be migrated as part of the “whole server” migration feature, or as part of a “service-level” migration for migratable JMS-related services. Migratable JMS-related services cannot use the default persistent file store, so you must configure a custom file store or JDBC store and target it to the same migratable target as the JMS server or SAF agent associated with the store. (As a best practice, a path service should use its own custom store and migratable target).

Migratable custom file stores can be configured on a shared disk that is available to the migratable target servers in the cluster or can be migrated to a backup server target by using pre/post-migration scripts. For more information on migrating persistent stores, see Custom Store Availability for JMS Services in Configuring WebLogic Server Environments.

Using the WebLogic Path Service

The WebLogic Server Path Service is a persistent map that can be used to store the mapping of a group of messages in a JMS Message Unit-of-Order to a messaging resource in a cluster. It provides a way to enforce ordering by pinning messages to a member of a cluster that is hosting servlets, distributed queue members, or Store-and-Forward agents. One path service is configured per cluster. For more information on the Message Unit-of-Order feature, see Using Message Unit-of-Order in Programming WebLogic JMS.

To configure a path service in a cluster, see Configure path services in the Administration Console Online Help.

Path Service High Availability

For high availability, a cluster’s path service can be targeted to a migratable target for manual service migration. However, a migratable path service cannot use the default store, so a custom store must be configured and targeted to the same migratable target. As an additional best practice, the path service and its custom store should be the only users of that migratable target. See Understanding the Service-level Migration Framework in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Implementing Message UOO With a Path Service

Consider the following when implementing Message Unit-of-Order in conjunction with Path Service-based routing:

Configuring Foreign Server Resources to Access Third-Party JMS Providers

WebLogic JMS enables you to reference third-party JMS providers within a local WebLogic Server JNDI tree. With Foreign Server resources in JMS modules, you can quickly map a foreign JMS provider so that its associated connection factories and destinations appear in the WebLogic JNDI tree as local JMS objects. Foreign Server resources can also be used to reference remote instances of WebLogic Server in another cluster or domain in the local WebLogic JNDI tree.

For more information on integrating remote and foreign JMS providers, see Enhanced 2EE Support for Using WebLogic JMS With EJBs and Servlets in Programming WebLogic JMS.

These sections provide more information on how a Foreign Server works and a sample configuration for accessing a remote MQSeries JNDI provider.

How WebLogic JMS Accesses Foreign JMS Providers

When a foreign JMS server is deployed, it creates local connection factory and destination objects in WebLogic Server JNDI. Then when a foreign connection factory or destination object is looked up on the local server, that object performs the actual lookup on the remote JNDI directory, and the foreign object is returned from that directory.

This method makes it easier to configure multiple WebLogic Messaging Bridge destinations, since the foreign server moves the JNDI Initial Context Factory and Connection URL configuration details outside of your Messaging Bridge destination configurations. You need only provide the foreign Connection Factory and Destination JNDI name for each object.

For more information on configuring a Messaging Bridge, see Configuring and Managing the WebLogic Messaging Bridge.

The ease-of-configuration concept also applies to configuring WebLogic Servlets, EJBs, and Message-Driven Beans (MDBs) with WebLogic JMS. For example, the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file in the MDB can have a local JNDI name, and you can use the foreign JMS server to control where the MDB receives messages from. For example, you can deploy the MDB in one environment to talk to one JMS destination and server, and you can deploy the same weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file to a different server and have it talk to a different JMS destination without having to unpack and edit the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file.

Creating Foreign Server Resources

A Foreign Server resource in a JMS module represents a JNDI provider that is outside the WebLogic JMS server. It contains information that allows a local WebLogic Server instance to reach a remote JNDI provider, thereby allowing for a number of foreign connection factory and destination objects to be defined on one JNDI directory.

The WebLogic Server Administration Console enables you to configure, modify, target, and delete foreign server resources in a system module. For a road map of the foreign server tasks, see Configure foreign servers in the Administration Console Online Help.

Some foreign server options are dynamically configurable. When options are modified at run time, only incoming messages are affected; stored messages are not affected. For more information about the default values for all foreign server options, see ForeignServerBean in the WebLogic Server MBean Reference.

After defining a foreign server, you can configure connection factory and destination objects. You can configure one or more connection factories and destinations (queues or topics) for each foreign server.

Creating Foreign Connection Factory Resources

A Foreign Connection Factory resource in a JMS module contains the JNDI name of the connection factory in the remote JNDI provider, the JNDI name that the connection factory is mapped to in the local WebLogic Server JNDI tree, and an optional user name and password.

The foreign connection factory creates non-replicated JNDI objects on each WebLogic Server instance that the parent foreign server is targeted to. (To create the JNDI object on every node in a cluster, target the foreign server to the cluster.)

Creating a Foreign Destination Resources

A Foreign Destination resource in a JMS module represents either a queue or a topic. It contains the destination JNDI name that is looked up on the foreign JNDI provider and the JNDI name that the destination is mapped to on the local WebLogic Server. When the foreign destination is looked up on the local server, a lookup is performed on the remote JNDI directory, and the destination object is returned from that directory.

Sample Configuration for MQSeries JNDI

The following table provides a possible a sample configuration when accessing a remote MQSeries JNDI provider.

Configuring Distributed Destination Resources

A distributed destination resource in a JMS module represents a single set of destinations (queues or topics) that are accessible as a single, logical destination to a client (for example, a distributed topic has its own JNDI name). The members of the set are typically distributed across multiple servers within a cluster, with each member belonging to a separate JMS server. Applications that use a distributed destination are more highly available than applications that use standalone destinations because WebLogic JMS provides load balancing and failover for the members of a distributed destination in a cluster.

These sections provide information on how to create, monitor, and load balance distributed destinations:

Uniform Distributed Destinations vs. Weighted Distributed Destinations

WebLogic Server 9.0 and later offers two types of distributed destination: uniform and weighted. In releases prior to WebLogic Server 9.0, WebLogic Administrators often needed to manually configure physical destinations to function as members of a distributed destination. This method provided the flexibility to create members that were intended to carry extra message load or have extra capacity; however, such differences often led to administrative and application problems because such a weighted distributed destination was not deployed consistently across a cluster. This type of distributed destination is officially referred to as a weighted distributed destination (or WDD).

A uniform distributed destination (UDD) greatly simplifies the management and development of distributed destination applications.Using uniform distributed destinations, you no longer need to create or designate destination members, but instead rely on WebLogic Server to uniformly create the necessary members on the JMS servers to which a JMS module is targeted. This feature ensures the consistent configuration of all distributed destination parameters, particularly in regards to weighting, security, persistence, paging, and quotas.

The weighted distributed destination feature is still available for users who prefer to manually fine-tune distributed destination members. However, BEA strongly recommends configuring uniform distributed destinations to avoid possible administrative and application problems due to a weighted distributed destinations not being deployed consistently across a cluster.

For more information about using a distributed destination with your applications, see Using Distributed Destinations in Programming WebLogic JMS.

Creating Uniform Distributed Destinations

The WebLogic Server Administration Console enables you to configure, modify, target, and delete UDD resources in JMS system module. By leaving the “Allocate Members Uniformly” check box selected, the WebLogic Server automatically creates uniformly-configured destination members on selected JMS servers, or on all JMS servers on a target server or cluster.

For a road map of the uniform distributed destination tasks, see the following topics in the Administration Console Online Help:

Some uniform distributed destination options are dynamically configurable. When options are modified at run time, only incoming messages are affected; stored messages are not affected. For more information about the default values for all uniform distributed destination options, see the following entries in the WebLogic Server MBean Reference:

Targeting Uniform Distributed Queues and Topics

Unlike standalone queue and topics resources in a module, which can only be targeted to a specific JMS server in a domain, UDDs can be targeted to one or more JMS servers, one or more WebLogic Server instances, or to a cluster, since the purpose of UDDs is to distribute its members on every JMS server in a domain. For example, targeting a UDD to a cluster ensures that a member is uniformly configured on every JMS server in the cluster.

You can also use subdeployment groups when configuring UDDs to link specific resources with the distributed members. For example, if a system module named jmssysmod-jms.xml, is targeted to three WebLogic Server instances: wlserver1, wlserver2, and wlserver3, each with a configured JMS server, and you want to target a uniform distributed queue and a connection factory to each server instance, you can group the UDQ and connection factory in a subdeployment named servergroup, to ensure that these resources are always linked to the same server instances.

Here’s how the servergroup subdeployment resources would look in jmssysmod-jms.xml:

<weblogic-jms xmlns="http://www.bea.com/ns/weblogic/91">
  <connection-factory name="connfactory">
    <sub-deployment-name>servergroup</sub-deployment-name>
    <jndi-name>jms.connectionfactory.CF</jndi-name>
  </connection-factory>
 <uniform-distributed-queue name="UniformDistributedQueue">
    <sub-deployment-name>servergroup</sub-deployment-name>
    <jndi-name>jms.queue.UDQ</jndi-name>
    <forward-delay>10</forward-delay>
 </uniform-distributed-queue>
</weblogic-jms>

And here’s how the servergroup subdeployment targeting would look in the domain’s configuration file:

  <jms-system-resource>
   <name>jmssysmod-jms</name>
   <target>cluster1,</target>
   <sub-deployment>
     <name>servergroup</name>
     <target>wlserver1,wlserver2,wlserver3</target>
   </sub-deployment> 
   <descriptor-file-name>jms/jmssysmod-jms.xml</descriptor-file-name>
  </jms-system-resource>

Pausing and Resuming Message Operations on UDD Members

You can pause and resume message production, insertion, and/or consumption operations on a uniform distributed destinations, either programmatically (using JMX and the runtime MBean API) or administratively (using the Administration Console). In this way, you can control the JMS subsystem behavior in the event of an external resource failure that would otherwise cause the JMS subsystem to overload the system by continuously accepting and delivering (and redelivering) messages.

For more information on the “pause and resume” feature, see Controlling Message Operations on Destinations.

Monitoring UDD Members

Runtime statistics for uniform distributed destination members can be monitored via the Administration console, as described in Monitoring JMS Statistics.

Creating Weighted Distributed Destinations

The WebLogic Server Administration Console enables you to configure, modify, target, and delete WDD resources in JMS system modules. When configuring a distributed topic or distributed queue, clearing the “Allocate Members Uniformly” check box allows you to manually select existing queues and topics to add to the distributed destination, and to fine-tune the weighting of resulting distributed destination members.

For a road map of the weighted distributed destination tasks, see the following topics in the Administration Console Online Help:

Some weighted distributed destination options are dynamically configurable. When options are modified at run time, only incoming messages are affected; stored messages are not affected. For more information about the default values for all weighted distributed destination options, see the following entries in the WebLogic Server MBean Reference:

Unlike UDDs, WDD members cannot be monitored with the Administration Console or though runtime MBeans. Also, WDDs members cannot be uniformly targeted to JMS server or WebLogic Server instances in a domain. Instead, new WDD members must be manually configured on such instances, and then manually added to the WDD.

Load Balancing Messages Across a Distributed Destination

By using distributed destinations, JMS can spread or balance the messaging load across multiple destinations, which can result in better use of resources and improved response times. The JMS load-balancing algorithm determines the physical destinations that messages are sent to, as well as the physical destinations that consumers are assigned to.

Load Balancing Options

WebLogic JMS supports two different algorithms for balancing the message load across multiple physical destinations within a given distributed destination set. You select one of these load balancing options when configuring a distributed topic or queue on the Administration Console.

Round-Robin Distribution

In the round-robin algorithm, WebLogic JMS maintains an ordering of physical destinations within the distributed destination. The messaging load is distributed across the physical destinations one at a time in the order that they are defined in the WebLogic Server configuration (config.xml) file. Each WebLogic Server maintains an identical ordering, but may be at a different point within the ordering. Multiple threads of execution within a single server using a given distributed destination affect each other with respect to which physical destination a member is assigned to each time they produce a message. Round-robin is the default algorithm and doesn’t need to be configured.

For weighted distributed destinations only, if weights are assigned to any of the physical destinations in the set for a given distributed destination, then those physical destinations appear multiple times in the ordering.

Random Distribution

The random distribution algorithm uses the weight assigned to the physical destinations to compute a weighted distribution for the set of physical destinations. The messaging load is distributed across the physical destinations by pseudo-randomly accessing the distribution. In the short run, the load will not be directly proportional to the weight. In the long run, the distribution will approach the limit of the distribution. A pure random distribution can be achieved by setting all the weights to the same value, which is typically 1.

Adding or removing a member (either administratively or as a result of a WebLogic Server shutdown/restart event) requires a recomputation of the distribution. Such events should be infrequent however, and the computation is generally simple, running in O(n) time.

Consumer Load Balancing

When an application creates a consumer, it must provide a destination. If that destination represents a distributed destination, then WebLogic JMS must find a physical destination that consumer will receive messages from. The choice of which destination member to use is made by using one of the load-balancing algorithms described in Load Balancing Options. The choice is made only once: when the consumer is created. From that point on, the consumer gets messages from that member only.

Producer Load Balancing

When a producer sends a message, WebLogic JMS looks at the destination where the message is being sent. If the destination is a distributed destination, WebLogic JMS makes a decision as to where the message will be sent. That is, the producer will send to one of the destination members according to one of the load-balancing algorithms described in Load Balancing Options.

The producer makes such a decision each time it sends a message. However, there is no compromise of ordering guarantees between a consumer and producer, because consumers are load balanced once, and are then pinned to a single destination member.

Load Balancing Heuristics

In addition to the algorithms described in Load Balancing Options, WebLogic JMS uses the following heuristics when choosing an instance of a destination.

Transaction Affinity

When producing multiple messages within a transacted session, an effort is made to send all messages produced to the same WebLogic Server. Specifically, if a session sends multiple messages to a single distributed destination, then all of the messages are routed to the same physical destination. If a session sends multiple messages to multiple different distributed destinations, an effort is made to choose a set of physical destinations served by the same WebLogic Server.

Server Affinity

The Server Affinity Enabled parameter on connection factories defines whether a WebLogic Server that is load balancing consumers or producers across multiple member destinations in a distributed destination set, will first attempt to load balance across any other local destination members that are also running on the same WebLogic Server.

To disable server affinity on a connection factory:

For more information about how the Server Affinity Enabled setting affects the load balancing among the members of a distributed destination, see How Distributed Destination Load Balancing Is Affected When Server Affinity Is Enabled.

Queues with Zero Consumers

When load balancing consumers across multiple remote physical queues, if one or more of the queues have zero consumers, then those queues alone are considered for balancing the load. Once all the physical queues in the set have at least one consumer, the standard algorithms apply.

In addition, when producers are sending messages, queues with zero consumers are not considered for message production, unless all instances of the given queue have zero consumers.

Paused Distributed Destination Members

When distributed destinations are paused for message production or insertion, they are not considered for message production. Similarly, when destinations are paused for consumption, they are not considered for message production.

For more information on pausing message operations on destinations, see Controlling Message Operations on Destinations.

Defeating Load Balancing

Applications can defeat load balancing by directly accessing the individual physical destinations. That is, if the physical destination has no JNDI name, it can still be referenced using the createQueue() or createTopic() methods.

For instructions on how to directly access uniform and weighted distributed destination members, see Accessing Distributed Destination Members in Programming WebLogic JMS.

Connection Factories

Applications that use distributed destinations to distribute or balance their producers and consumers across multiple physical destinations, but do not want to make a load balancing decision each time a message is produced, can use a connection factory with the Load Balancing Enabled parameter disabled. To ensure a fair distribution of the messaging load among a distributed destination, the initial physical destination (queue or topic) used by producers is always chosen at random from among the distributed destination members.

To disable load balancing on a connection factory:

Anonymous producers (producers that do not designate a destination when created), are load-balanced each time they switch destinations. If they continue to use the same destination, then the rules for non-anonymous producers apply (as stated previously).

How Distributed Destination Load Balancing Is Affected When Server Affinity Is Enabled

Table 4-2 explains how the setting of a connection factory’s Server Affinity Enabled parameter affects the load balancing preferences for distributed destination members. The order of preference depends on the type of operation and whether or not durable subscriptions or persistent messages are involved.

The Server Affinity Enabled parameter for distributed destinations is different from the server affinity provided by the Default Load Algorithm attribute in the ClusterMBean, which is also used by the JMS connection factory to create initial context affinity for client connections.

For more information, refer to the Load Balancing for EJBs and RMI Objects and Initial Context Affinity and Server Affinity for Client Connections sections in Using WebLogic Server Clusters.

Distributed Destination Migration

For clustered JMS implementations that take advantage of the Service Migration feature, a JMS server and its distributed destination members can be manually migrated to another WebLogic Server instance within the cluster. Service migrations can take place due to scheduled system maintenance, as well as in response to a server failure within the cluster.

However, the target WebLogic Server may already be hosting a JMS server with all of its physical destinations. This can lead to situations where the same WebLogic Server instance hosts two physical destinations for a single distributed destination. This is permissible in the short term, since a WebLogic Server instance can host multiple physical destinations for that distributed destination. However, load balancing in this situation is less effective.

In such a situation, each JMS server on a target WebLogic Server instance operates independently. This is necessary to avoid merging of the two destination instances, and/or disabling of one instance, which can make some messages unavailable for a prolonged period of time. The long-term intent, however, is to eventually re-migrate the migrated JMS server to yet another WebLogic Server instance in the cluster.

For more information about the configuring JMS migratable targets, see Migration of JMS-related Services.

Distributed Destination Failover

If the server instance that is hosting the JMS connections for the JMS producers and JMS consumers should fail, then all the producers and consumers using these connections are closed and are not re-created on another server instance in the cluster. Furthermore, if a server instance that is hosting a JMS destination should fail, then all the JMS consumers for that destination are closed and not re-created on another server instance in the cluster.

If the distributed queue member on which a queue producer is created should fail, yet the WebLogic Server instance where the producer’s JMS connection resides is still running, the producer remains alive and WebLogic JMS will fail it over to another distributed queue member, irrespective of whether the Load Balancing option is enabled.

For more information about procedures for recovering from a WebLogic Server failure, see Recovering From a WebLogic Server Failure in Programming WebLogic JMS.