Camel supports marshalling and unmarshalling of messages into and out of several different data formats such as JAXB, JSON, HL7 etc. An ability to map a message from XML into a compressed data format such as (ZLIB, GZIP, PKZIP) etc can offer significant advantages with respect to network performance and storage in exchange for a small added cost of message compression.
The messages marshalled using zip compression can be unmarshalled using zip decompression just prior to being consumed at the endpoint. The true value of applying compression during a camel route is that it requires no changes to the source or destination application. Compression takes place just after the message leaves the source application and is picked up by the Camel message listener. The message exchange can now be forwarded/routed via several endpoints in a camel flow. Ideally, the message need be uncompressed only when it arrives at its final destination.
I have implemented this feature/capability and made a submission to the Camel community. I believe this capability is invaluable when you deal with large XML and Text based payloads.
The way this feature is designed to work in Camel is as follows
Example 1: Message Compression
RouteBuilder builder = new RouteBuilder() {
public void configure() {
from("http:www.foo.com/orders")
.marshal().zip(Deflater.BEST_COMPRESSION)
.to("activemq:queue:ORDERS")
}
};
Example 1: Message Decompression
RouteBuilder builder = new RouteBuilder() {
public void configure() {
from("activemq:queue:ORDERS")
.unmarshal().zip()
.bean((MyOrderProcessor.class);
}
};
I hope you like this feature and use it judiciously in an enterprise environment that utilizes Camel as a mediation layer to route messages to their ultimate destinations as a compact set of payloads.
Please find my submission to the Apache community here
https://issues.apache.org/activemq/browse/CAMEL-1133
