Recommended Approach for Publishing to Topics in ESB 4.7?

[jlentz]

Running JBoss 5.1.0 GA with JBoss ESB 4.7

I'm trying to use NotifyTopics to send a message from one JBossESB service to other JBossESB services. Initially, I'm starting with one subscriber.
The message is successfully received by the subscriber, but the message payload is missing.  The JBoss ESB 4.7 Programmer's Guide states that NotifyTopic will translate the ESB message into a JMS message and publish the JMS message to the list of TOpics.  I am using a Gateway listener and ESB listener on the subscriber.  I expected the JMSMessage to be converted to an ESB message and for my payload to be found in the location where it was originally stored.  Is this a proper application of NotifyTopics?  If so, do you see anything amiss with my service setup?

Publishing service jboss-esb.xml snippet:

<service category="PublishService" name="publishData"
    description="publish data">
<listeners>
  <jms-listener busidref="receiveStatusGwChannel" is-gateway="true" name="jmsResponseGwListener" />
  <jms-listener busidref="receiveStatusEsbChannel" name="jmsResponseEsbListener" />
</listeners>
<actions mep="OneWay">
  <action name="publishData" />
  <action name="notificationAction">   
    <property name="okMethod" value="notifyOK" />
    <property name="notification-details">
          <NotificationList type="ok">
        <target/>
      <target>
       <topic jndiName="topic/publish_data_gw"/>
      </target>   
    </NotificationList>
    </property>
  </action>
</actions>
</service>

Subscriber service jboss-esb.xml snippet:
<providers>
  <jms-provider connection-factory="ClusteredConnectionFactory" name="JBossMessaging">
    <jms-bus busid="applyAdjustmentsGwChannel">
    <jms-message-filter dest-name="topic/publish_data_gw" dest-type="TOPIC" />
    </jms-bus>
    <jms-bus busid="applyAdjustmentsEsbChannel">
        <jms-message-filter dest-name="queue/apply_adjustments_esb" dest-type="QUEUE" />
    </jms-bus>
  </jms-provider>
</providers>
<services>
  <service category="SubscribingService" name="subscribe"
    description="subscribe to topic and process data on message">
   <listeners>
     <jms-listener busidref="applyAdjustmentsGwChannel" is-gateway="true" name="jmsApplyAdjustmentsGwListener" />
     <jms-listener busidref="applyAdjustmentsEsbChannel" name="jmsApplyAdjustmentsEsbListener" />
   </listeners>
   <actions mep="RequestResponse">
     <action name="adjBusinessAction" />
   </actions>
  </service>
</services>

If this is not a proper application of NotifyTopics, what is the preferred approach to publish to a topic in JBoss ESB? 

Any assistance would be most appreciated!

Thanks,
Jennifer

[jlentz]

It seems some of my data was lost when pasting the Publisher service jboss-esb.xml.  Please find the correct data below.  Again, any assistance would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Jennifer

<action name="notificationAction" class="org.jboss.soa.esb.actions.Notifier">   
    <property name="okMethod" value="notifyOK" />
    <property name="notification-details">
    <NotificationList type="ok">
       <target class="NotifyConsole"/>
       <target class="NotifyTopics">
         <topic jndiName="topic/publish_data_gw"/>
      </target>   
    </NotificationList>
    </property>
  </action>

[noelo]

I think if you want to send ESB aware message from one service to another its best to use the StaticRouter functionality.

[mikefinnx]

If it's a publish/subscribe use-case, the publisher should not  need to know about the subscribers, ie you want to be able to add  subscribers without modifying the publisher service. So I would think StaticRouter is not what would you would want.

The only way I  found to do this was with JmsRouter, which I had to clone/customize to  support topics (JmsRouter only supports sending to queue). If you want  the version that can do topics, let me know and I can post.

BTW - using notifiers to send to esb-aware endpoints is  not recommended.

Mike

[cjh]

JmsRouter use to work with Topics, but I tracked it down to being broke in revision 24944, but I'm not sure why.  Having something called JmsRouter that doesn't work with topics gives you a really, really bad class name.  Needs to be JmsQueueRouter in this case.  Can you attach your class either here or with https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/JBESB-3287 ?  Thanks.

[jlentz]

Thanks everyone for your input.  It sounds like a JMSRouter that works with Topics would be the best solution.  Mike, if you could post your version of the JMSRouter that supports Topics, that'd be great.

Best regards,

Jennifer

[mikefinnx]

I will attach to the jira this weekend.

Mike

[jlentz]

Great!  Thanks Mike!

[mikefinnx]

OK - it's attached tp the jira. Works with both queue and topic. To use, you can do one of the following:

- Copy into an ESB project and change the package name, refer to it in your jboss-esb.xml

- Build a jar with just that changed file and reference it using the patch mechanism (see: http://community.jboss.org/wiki/JBossPatchURL)

Mike

[jlentz]

Your JMSRouter works beautifully!  Thanks so much!

Jennifer