Auto Starting Applications with WebSphere

There is a handy feature of WebSphere Application Server which allows you to control whether applications start automatically when the server is (re)started. By default, all applications (which are Mediation Modules or Modules in WebSphere ESB and Process Server terminology) start automatically when the server starts, but you can turn this off on an application-by-application basis. This is particularly useful to speed up server startup time, or if the applications consume resources as soon as they are started.

You can enable or disable Auto Start using the admin console – simply navigate to Applications / Enterprise Applications / Your application / Target specific application status:

If you have the application installed on multiple servers in a Network Deployment topology, you can select a different Auto Start status for each server.

Thanks to Victoria Amor for the help with this tip.

WS-Addressing Headers in WebSphere ESB v6.2

I wrote previously about how WS-Addressing headers could be accessed in a WebSphere ESB mediation flow, by writing a JAX-RPC handler to intercept them and insert them into a custom SOAP header.

However, in WebSphere ESB 6.2, this is much easier – these headers will now automatically appear as part of the ServiceMessageObject at /headers/WSAHeader. They are effectively read-only; any changes that you make will not affect outgoing messages.