Pattern: Control Bus

Pattern: Control Bus

How can we effectively administer a messaging system that is distributed across multiple platforms and a wide geographic area?

Use a Control Bus to manage an enterprise integration system. The Control Bus uses the same

messaging mechanism used by the application data, but uses separate channels to transmit

data that is relevant to the management of components involved in the message flow.

The Control Bus is well suited to carry the following types of messages:

• Configuration - each component involved in the message flow should have configurable parameters that can be changed as required.
• Heartbeat - each component may send a periodic 'heartbeat' message on the Control Bus at specified intervals so that a central console application can verify that the component is functioning properly.
• Test Messages - heartbeat messages tell the Control Bus that a component is still alive, but may provide limited information on ability of the component to correctly process messages.
• Exceptions - each component can channel exception conditions to the Control Bus to be evaluated.
• Statistics - Each component can collect statistics about the number of messages processed, average throughput, average time to process a message, etc.
• Live Console - most of the functions mentioned here can be aggregated for display in a central console.