Concept Review
Reviewing the progression of concepts can help solidify your understanding of TIBCO FTL software.
We began with simplified versions of the most important concepts of TIBCO FTL software. Yet while the simplified concepts promote understanding, they were insufficient to satisfy more complex messaging needs. Each new requirement added new concepts until we arrived at the full picture of TIBCO FTL software.
First we introduced simple messaging: publishers, subscribers and message streams. We explained FTL’s main paradigm: one-to-many publishing. We saw how transports carry message streams.
The need for different types of transports led us to the concept of endpoints, analogous to electrical terminals, where transports connect to application programs. We saw cases where a program might need more than one endpoint, each carrying a separate message stream.
We introduced content matchers as a mechanism for selecting messages from a message stream, rather than addressing messages to specific destinations.
The need for one-to-one messaging led us to the concept of inboxes. We saw how cooperating applications could use inboxes to communicate in a request/reply pattern.
We noted that message streams and subscriber interest are transient, but sometimes we need message streams that endure, which led us to persistence stores. We saw how stores back endpoints, or more generally, networks of endpoints. We also saw how shared durables can distribute a message stream among a set of cooperating subscribers. We saw how last-value durables can divide a message stream according to the value of a key field.
We saw that self-describing messages are easy to use, but less efficient than defining message formats.
Viewing an application as a collection of endpoints, we revisited the separation of responsibilities between programmer and administrator. The need for variant communication schemes, depending on execution environment, led to the concept of application instances.
Finally, the need for separate communication fabrics led us to the concept of a realm.