webMethods

Product/components used and version/fix level:

Universal Messaging ( UM ) 10.15 VB.net

Detailed explanation of the problem:

We are needing to convert vb.net broker clients to UM clients. There does not appear to be any vb.net samples for accessing UM. Does anyone have any vb.net sample code for accessing UM.

Instead of implementing the library for UM, I recommend implementing the web API. If you use the library, you might need compatibility issues in the future.
You can find the documentation for both below.
https://documentation.softwareag.com/universal_messaging/num10-15/webhelp/num-webhelp/#page/num-webhelp%2Fco-index_dg_25.html%23
https://documentation.softwareag.com/universal_messaging/num10-15/webhelp/num-webhelp/#page/num-webhelp%2Fco-drivers_6.html%23

If low latency isn’t a requirement, you can use IS services to wrap UM queues as well. I usually prefer publishing through IS services and I don’t like exposing UM resources unless I have to.

Hi Engin, Thanks for the advice, I will look through it. But in this case we are migrating from Broker to UM, and we have some existing applications which are written in VB.net. These applications are not IS services, but are stand alone applications putting and getting to our existing Broker servers which are part of our webMethods infrastructure. We’ll need to convert those applications with minimal changes.

That’s one of the reasons I don’t like implementing the library. It creates a dependency to it. The documentation has examples as well but I guess you don’t find them good enough. The samples are usually installed using installer. I couldn’t verify it for VB unfortunately, looks like it requires a license and we don’t have it. The samples directory for C++ is /opt/softwareag/UniversalMessaging/cplus/examples
and other libraries follow the same pattern.

I have confirmed with SoftwareAG that they do not provide any samples of vb.net code with their UM installation, and the documentation does not have any vb.net examples. That is why i’m asking the community if anyone has used vb.net to access the UM libraries, and if they could provide any examples.

Hi David,

other question not asked yet:
Why do you want/need to migrate from Broker to UM?
Broker is still available even with wM 10.15.

Regards,
Holger

Hi Holger,

I started the migration from Broker to UM many years ago, so I am supporting both products. I would like to reduce the support effort by eliminating the Broker. I’m also running Broker 9.6, and would rather migrate to UM vs. upgrading the broker. We’ve had more difficulties with having our external vb.net clients connecting to Broker with SSL, so assuming that will be easier with UM.

Hi David,

unfortunately, we have never used UM in our project, as it was started before UM was acquired by SAG and integrated into the wM Suite.
Our last version was Broker 9.6 together with IS 9.12.

Regards,
Holger

Given the recent acquisition of webMethods by IBM, I would also check with them about the roadmap here. Migrating from Broker to UM now, might be a somewhat odd timing ;-).

David, The samples that come with the installation are C# .NET. They do not have anything for VB .NET. I created standalone C# .NET applications using the UM dotnet libraries and they are not that complicated to work with. With a mix of the C# .NET samples and API guide you will be able to easily convert your applications from Broker to UM. Having said that, the main problem you will be facing is the lack of support(AFAIK) for VB .NET with UM.

I would recommend creating a C# .NET class library with all the functions for login\publish\subscribe etc and then import this library in to your VB .NET app and call it from there. Basically writing a wrapper library to do the integration with UM and use that in VB .NET app. Hope it helps!

Hi Akshith,

Thanks for your solution. I have marked it as the Accepted Solution as it is certainly a viable solution which I had not considered. I have worked with that solution, and I have also been able to convert C# code to VB.net using ChatGPT which seems to also be a good solution. Both of these work, and I have not committed to which solution I’ll be using as I’m still working through setting up a secure connection using certificates.
Dave