Introduction to TIBCO SmartSockets

is an interprocess messaging software product that enables processes to communicate quickly, reliably, and securely across different operating system platforms. The communicating processes can reside on the same machine, on LANs, on WANs, or anywhere on the Internet.

A SmartSockets message is a structured packet of information that is transferred between two or more programs, which might or might not reside on the same machine. It is not unusual for a SmartSockets message to exist only in memory and never be written to disk. A message is a mechanism that enables program-to-program communication to occur in a manner easily understood by both you and the programs.

SmartSockets is an industrial-strength package that takes care of network interfaces, guarantees delivery of messages, handles communication protocols, and deals with recovery after system or network failures. The SmartSockets' programming model is built specifically to offer high-speed interprocess communication, scalability, reliability, and fault tolerance. It supports a variety of communication paradigms, including publish-subscribe, peer-to-peer, and request-reply. Included as part of the package are graphical tools for monitoring and debugging your distributed applications.

The SmartSockets product consists of a suite of programming interfaces and class libraries, ready-to-run programs, source code for sample programs, and extensive documentation. It is designed to get your network programs running as quickly as possible.

These components are part of a standard SmartSockets release, and are installed during the SmartSockets installation process:

SmartSockets Application Programming Interface (API) provides a C-callable library of functions for communicating between programs and monitoring your distributed applications.

SmartSockets Java class library provides classes, objects, and interfaces to Java applications, allowing them to leverage the functions of the SmartSockets API.

Two SmartSockets C++ class libraries provide your choice of an object-oriented layer on top of the standard SmartSockets services.

SmartSockets on the Windows platform provides an API for .NET.

RTserver, a powerful software message router, empowers applications with the publish-subscribe communications model.

RTmon, a powerful tool for monitoring and debugging your distributed project, is accessible through a graphical user interface (GUI) and through a command-line interface.

Structured message types, messages with predefined field types, enable transparent data conversion. SmartSockets comes with many predefined message types to get you working quickly. You can easily extend these by defining your own types.

Options and command language allow you to reconfigure your SmartSockets applications easily.

Sample programs get you off to a fast start.

Books and online documentation are available. The complete SmartSockets library is available for download and on CDROM, in HTML and PDF formats. You can order printed books through your sales representative or from TIBCO Product Support.