BEA Systems Inc has added publish-and-subscribe functionality to the DECMessageQ application-to-application asynchronous messaging software it acquired from DEC back in February and is offering the enhanced package as BEA MessageQ 4.0 (CI No 3,103). Information only needs to be broadcast – published – once to all subscribers. The publish and subscribe system was already being written when BEA acquired DECMessageQ. 4.0 also includes global naming – enabling message queues to be visible across the network. BEA claims the software now also supports self- describing messages, so that applications receiving the message can decipher and act upon its content regardless of data format. Developers supposedly do not have to be concerned with programming application-specific details into message headers in order for the receiving application to act upon it. 4.0 will be available on Unix, NT and OpenVMS this quarter. BEA has also revved the ObjectBroker object request broker it acquired from DEC at the same time to support MessageQ, meaning object application developers can choose between native Corba synchronous services in BEA ObjectBroker, or asynchronous BEA MessageQ. Use of asynchronous services means can get on with other jobs while the message bus is delivering data between applications which can send, receive and process messages at their optimum speed. BEA ObjectBroker 3.0 is due on DEC Unix and Windows NT for Intel and Alpha RISC this quarter. Other Unix implementations will follow in the third quarter. The Desktop Connection middleware BEA picked up along with DECMessageQ and ObjectBroker is being offered as an optional ObjectBroker add-on for connecting Microsoft Corp’s Distributed Communications Object Model (DCOM) and Object Management Group’s Common Object Request Broker Architecture (Corba). Desktop Connection provides a bi- directional bridge between ActiveX containers and Corba objects managed by ObjectBroker (originally designed for use with DCOM), and functions by enabling ActiveX applications to access ObjectBroker objects and applications. BEA claims Desktop Connection’s Windows95 Explorer-style interface enables corporate applications to be linked to Microsoft desktop applications such as Word and Excel without recoding – and without knowledge of Corba’s Interface Definition Language – unlike other solutions which require the ObjectBroker server be made ‘ActiveX-aware.’ ObjectBroker object applications, data and business rules can be incorporated into custom client applications written in Visual Basic, Visual C++, Java and other programming tools. BEA ObjectBroker Desktop Connection 1.0 will be available this quarter for Windows 95, 3.1 and NT and connects to ObjectBroker running on Unix or NT. For good measure, BEA has also joined OMG as a contributing member, the highest level of membership. BEA is currently integrating Tuxedo with ObjectBroker to enable object and Tuxedo TP services to interoperate using IIOP. The integrated product is code-named Iceberg and is set to beta in the first quarter of 1998. BEA Tuxedo is already bundled by PeopleSoft Inc in version 6 of its resource planning applications where it provides online updates where users were previously limited to batch updating. PeopleSoft will open up its architecture to N- tier application processing in version 7 using BEA Tuxedo. It will also exploit BEA’s host and IBM connectivity services and management APIs. The relationship will carry forward into PeopleSoft 8; BEA has already said it will continue to enhance PeopleSoft applications with its other technologies, presumably including the Corba IIOP-based ObjectBroker and MessageQ services for object and asynchronous messaging support. Expect Tuxedo to be fitted with further object and message integration in the near future.
