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messagehub088.md

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2015, 2017
2017-11-01

{:new_window: target="_blank"} {:shortdesc: .shortdesc} {:screen: .screen} {:codeblock: .codeblock} {:pre: .pre}

Linking to other services using bridges

{: #bridges}

Bridges are unidirectional links between {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} and another service. Bridges allow either data to be read from {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} and written into another service, or data to be read from another service and written into {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}}. {:shortdesc}

The key benefits of using {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} bridges are the following:

  • You can define bridges administratively, so you do not need to write application code.
  • The lifecycle of each bridge is monitored and managed by the {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} service. For example, if a bridge encounters an error, it is automatically restarted by {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}}.
  • Bridges are integrated with the {{site.data.keyword.Bluemix_short}} platform. For example, the logging and monitoring information generated by bridges is directed to the Kibana and Grafana dashboards.

You might find bridges useful in the following two common scenarios:

  • Consuming data from one or more data sources into {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}}.
  • Transferring data from {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} into another service. For example, to long-term storage.

{{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} bridges

{: notoc}

  • We provide the following two types of bridge:
    • MQ bridge, which takes message data from {{site.data.keyword.IBM}} MQ and transfers it to a topic in {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}}. We intend to support a wider range of bridges in the future.
    • {{site.data.keyword.objectstorageshort}} bridge, which transfers {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} data to an instance of the Object Storage service External link icon{:new_window}.
  • Currently, bridges are available in all {{site.data.keyword.Bluemix_notm}} public environments. Bridges are not available in {{site.data.keyword.Bluemix_short}} Dedicated.
  • You can administer bridges in the following two ways:
    • Using a REST API External link icon{:new_window}, which is an extension to the existing {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} Administration API. You can also find examples of how to use curl to manage the lifecycle of bridges at message-hub-docs External link icon{:new_window}. We might change this REST API as we continue to develop bridges. We intend to stabilize this API.
    • Using the {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} dashboard in the {{site.data.keyword.Bluemix_notm}} console.
  • You can associate a maximum of two bridges of any type with an instance of the {{site.data.keyword.messagehub}} service. We will continue to review this limitation as we continue to develop bridges.
  • There is no additional charge for using bridges beyond their messaging operations.
  • The MQ bridge does not support the use of SSL/TLS to protect the privacy and integrity of data as it is transferred between the bridge and the MQ queue manager. We intend to add support for using SSL/TLS to the bridge.
  • The {{site.data.keyword.objectstorageshort}} bridge concatenates messages using newline characters as separators as it writes the data into {{site.data.keyword.objectstorageshort}}. This makes it unsuitable for messages that contain embedded newline characters and for binary message data.
  • Object naming conventions that are currently used by the {{site.data.keyword.objectstorageshort}} bridge might change in future.

However, you can use the {{site.data.keyword.SecureGatewayfull}} External link icon{:new_window} service to send your data through a secure tunnel between {{site.data.keyword.Bluemix_notm}} and a {{site.data.keyword.SecureGateway}} client that you can install on-premises. In this configuration, the communication on either end of the tunnel is not secured using SSL/TLS.