Chapter 1 Introducing TIBCO SmartSockets

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. 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 term message is used throughout this manual. It should not be confused with the universally known concept of an email message. A SmartSockets message is a structured packet of information that is transferred between two or more programs, which may or may 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.

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