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Resource adapters
This documenation provides a description of how to use the HCL Link Resource adapers.
IBM MQ Adapter
The IBM® MQ adapter works with IBM MQ to accomplish the task of maintaining data compatibility, handling all kinds of data transformations from the simplest to the most complex.
Using the messaging adapter
Threading for IBM® MQ

Resource adapters
This documenation provides a description of how to use the HCL Link Resource adapers.
- Resource Adapters overview
  Resource adapters are used to retrieve and route data. They provide access to databases, files, messaging systems, enterprise applications and other data sources and targets.
- Apache HDFS Adapter
  The Apache HDFS Adapter allows the HCL Link to access the HDFS file system in Apache Hadoop environments.
- Apache ActiveMQ Adapter
  With the ActiveMQ Adapter, users can access any of the queues of the Active MQ Adapter to send and receive messages. Users can also create a new queue altogether for sending and receiving messages.
- Azure SQL Adapter
  Microsoft Azure SQL Database is a general-purpose relational database, provided as a managed service. With it, you can create a highly available and high-performance data storage layer for the applications and solutions in Azure.
- Azure Blob Storage Adapter
  The Azure Blob Storage adapter provides support to perform read and write operations on the blobs in the block storage managed by the Azure Blob Storage cloud service
- Apache Kafka Adapter
  With the Apache Kafka adapter, maps can connect to a Kafka cluster to consume and produce messages.
- Amazon S3 Adapter
  With the Amazon S3 or Amazon Simple Storage Service adapter, a user can access S3 buckets to fetch stored data and send new data to S3 buckets for storing.
- Amazon SNS Adapter
  With the Amazon SNS adapter, a user can access the Amazon Simple Notification Services. This adapter connects to the Simple Notification Services (SNS) topics, using AWS keys. The adapter can fetch and send notifications from and to those AWS SNS topics, to which the user has subscribed.
- Batch File and Shell Script Adapters
  The Batch File adapter processes a (Windows™) batch file as the data source of an input map card or the data target of an output map card. The Shell Script adapter processes a (UNIX™) shell script as the data source of an input map card or the data target of an output map card.
- CICS Adapter
  The Customer Information Control System (CICS) adapter allows you to retrieve CICS screen data without the difficulties associated with 3270 "screen scraping."
- Cipher Adapter
  The Cipher adapter encrypts and decrypts data by using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A single cryptographic key enciphers (encrypts) and deciphers data. The cryptographic key is stored in a master key file (MKF) in an AES-based encrypted format. As long as the MKF is not compromised or lost, the enciphered data is cryptographically secure.
- Email Adapters
  An email adapter automatically receives email messages as sources of a map or sends email messages as targets of a map.
- FTP Adapter
  Use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Adapter to transport data. When source data arrives at its target, it often must be transformed into a different format for a receiving application to use it successfully.
- Excel Adapter
  The Excel Adapter reads data from and maps data to a sheet in a Microsoft Excel workbook.
- Google Cloud Storage Adapter
  The Google Cloud Storage Adapter provides access to Google Cloud Storage buckets and objects in the Google Cloud Platform.
- Google Pub / Sub Adapter
  The Google Cloud Pub/Sub adapter provides access to Google Cloud Pub/Sub topics and subscriptions in the Google Cloud Platform.
- GZIP/ZLIB Adapter
  Use the GZIP/ZLIB Adapter to retrieve data in file or memory formats and export data for GZIP, ZLIB and Plain file formats.
- HTTP Adapter
  The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Adapter provides support for Proxy servers and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, which is required to process HTTPS (secure) URLs.
- IBM MQ Adapter
  The IBM® MQ adapter works with IBM MQ to accomplish the task of maintaining data compatibility, handling all kinds of data transformations from the simplest to the most complex.
  - IBM® MQ message content
  - Transmission queues
  - IBM® MQ client or server adapter
  - System requirements
  - Command aliases
  - IBM® MQ adapter commands
  - Syntax summary
  - Using the messaging adapter
    - Threading for IBM® MQ
    - Synchronizing the mark interval with the time frame for processing pending maps
      You can synchronize multiple watches on the same queue to help ensure that only one MQ Adapter attempts to process a message. If multiple adapters do attempt to process the same message, only one adapter processes the message. The other adapters cannot access the message and report a failure. Synchronize the time frame for processing pending maps with the mark interval of the queue to prevent multiple adapters from attempting to process the same message.
  - Group message support
  - Example files
  - Troubleshooting
  - Return codes and error messages
- Java Class Adapter
  Use the Java Class Adapter to instantiate a Java™ object and to invoke a sequence of methods on the object.
- HL7 MLLP Adapter
  The HL7 MLLP adapter uses the MLLP protocol over TCP/IP to pass data to and from HCL Link. The adapter has a listener interface that can detect the arrival of data on a socket and trigger a map to run. With the HL7 MLLP adapter, remote applications can pass data to HCL Link without using additional middleware software.
- Microsoft SQL Server Adapter
  This documentation discusses the Microsoft SQL Server Adapter. You can use the adapter with the Command Server, or with a map in a map rule.
- JAXB Adapter
  The JAXB adapter converts Java™ objects to XML and converts XML to Java objects. With the JAXB adapter, you can build Java objects that can be represented with XML, parse the objects, and use them in maps. The JAXB adapter supports all JAXB properties for marshalling and unmarshalling an XML document.
- JDBC Adapter
  Use the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) adapter to query or update a database through the appropriate JDBC driver for the database.
- JMS Adapter
  Use the Java™ Message Service (JMS) Adapter as a client to any JMS-compliant messaging system provider.
- JNDI Adapter
  Use the Java™ Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) Adapter to enable maps to look up, add, modify and delete entries in external directories, and retrieve the results that these operations return so that they can be reused in a map.
- MongoDB Adapter
  Use the MongoDB adapter to create, read, update, and delete single or multiple JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) documents in a MongoDB database.
- OData Adapter
  The OData (Open Data Protocol) adapter provides support for performing read and write operations on data sources that expose OData interface. OData adapter is an ISO/IEC approved, OASIS standard that defines a set of best practices for building and consuming RESTful APIs.
- OpenPGP Adapter
  Use the OpenPGP Adapter to exchange information with the GnuPG application.
- PDF Adapter
  The PDF Adapter works with Acrobat forms and templates to generate a PDF document or extract data from all or part of an input PDF document.
- REST Adapter
  REST adapter is a solution where Link can readily call any Web/REST API and provide easy mapping to and from the APIs.
- Salesforce Adapter
  Salesforce Adapter provides support to access Salesforce REST API resource. It is useful for abstracting a piece of information or an action.
- ServiceNow Adapter
  The ServiceNow adapter provides support for accessing ServiceNow REST API resources.
- SFTP Adapter
  With the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) adapter, you can send and fetch files securely to and from an SFTP server.
- SNMP Adapter
  The SNMP Adapter is used to create and send custom-defined traps to an SNMP manager.
- SOAP Adapter
  SOAP defines the XML-based message format that applications use to communicate and inter-operate with each other over the Web.
- Socket Adapter
  The Socket Adapter provides a means of passing data to and from HCL Link through standard TCP/IP sockets.
- Archive (Tar) Adapter
  This documentation introduces the Archive (Tar) adapter. You can use the adapter with a Command Server, Software Development Kit, or map in a map rule.
- Archive (Zip) Adapter
  Use the Archive (Zip) Adapter with a Command Server, Software Development Kit, or map in a map rule.

Threading for IBM® MQ

The IBM® MQ adapter is thread-safe on the Windows™ and Linux platforms. However, due to the IBM® MQ default system configuration parameters for queues and queue managers, the default IBM® MQ resources might be insufficient to support multithreading with the IBM® MQ adapter.

When operating in the multithreaded mode, the flow engine executes one thread for each map being concurrently executed. In addition to the map thread, the IBM® MQ queue manager connection for each distinct queue manager on a source or target card requires a separate connection thread. Because IBM® MQ does not allow connection sharing between threads, each map thread maintains its own set of connection threads.

In addition to the map and connection threads, the IBM® MQ system spawns threads to service internal requests and processes. The result is that, as the number of concurrent maps increases, the use of IBM® MQ and system resources multiplies. When the system resources exceed a threshold based upon the IBM® MQ and system configuration settings, the excessive thread context-switching and system memory resource allocation can significantly reduce the efficiency of the overall IBM® MQ message throughput.

In addition to the reduction in efficiency, it is possible that when the IBM® MQ systems resources are exceeded, the IBM® MQ behavior can become unpredictable and can result in messages being ignored on event queues.

To address these limitations, the following recommendations should be implemented:

Limit the number of concurrent messaging adapter threads to 20. This is a configuration parameter (MaxThreads) set in the dtx.ini file.
Ensure that the maximum number of handles (queue and queue manager connections) supported by the queue manager exceeds the total number of messaging adapter and IBM® MQ threads. This value can be changed by using an MQSC command at the runmqsc prompt as:
```
alter qmgr MAXHANDS(2048)
```
Set the maximum number of uncommitted messages allowed by the queue manager to an acceptably large value:
```
alter qmgr MAXUMSGS(100000)
```
Set the maximum number of messages allowed on a queue to an acceptable value:
```
alter ql(my.queue.name) MAXDEPTH(200000)
```