1. Clinical Data Exchange using HL7 and Mirth Connect Lecture 2 - Toolset to use for working with Mirth Connect. - Mirth Connect architecture. - Changing the internal database engine used by Mirth Connect.
Siv Raman, MD, MS

2. Toolset for working with Mirth Connect
HL7 Inspector
Open-source and free software tool for sending and receiving HL7 messages. Accommodates protocols like MLLP.
An alternative to using HL7 Inspector is the toolset available at
Stunnel
Open-source and free multi-platform SSL tunneling proxy that allows secure, encrypted HL7 interfaces to be set up. Mirth Connect does not support encrypted interfaces out of the box.
PostgreSQL
Open-source and free relational database management system.
soapUI
Functional Testing tool for Web Service Testing. It supports multiple protocols such as SOAP, REST, HTTP, JMS,

3. Toolset for working with Mirth Connect, continued
Apache ActiveMQ
An open-source and free complete message broker and full Java Message Service (JMS) 1.1 provider. It provides "Enterprise Features" like clustering, multiple message stores, and ability to use any database as a JMS persistence provider besides Virtual Machine (VM), cache, and journal persistency.
SQuirrel SQL
Open-source and free Java SQL Client program for any JDBC compliant database.
Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
The runtime environment for Java 6 (1.6) or later. Since Mirth Connect is written mostly in Java, the JRE is required to make it work.
Notepad++
Open-source and free text-editor
Mirth Connect 2.1.1

4. Mirth Connect Architecture
Mirth Connect Server
Mirth Connect API
Mirth Connect Administrator
Message
Store
Mirth Connect Command Line
Interface
Enterprise
Service
Bus
Connector
Plug-ins
Health Information
System

5. Mirth Connect Architecture, continued
Written mostly in Java
Uses the Mule Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Customized routing engine for broadcast/router modes
Connectors (SFTP, LLP, Document Writer)
Additional connectors can be easily added
Uses the HAPI HL7 v2 parser for strict HL7 parsing
For strict parsing only
Uses a different HL7 v2 parser for non-strict parsing
Includes X12, EDI parsers
Includes the Rhino JavaScript Engine with E4X (ECMAScript for XML) support (
Internal XML engine for message transformation
Server RESTful interface
Extensible on other platforms (.NET, Web)
Custom code extensions can be loaded through new JAR packages

6. Mirth Connect Architecture, continued
Mirth Connect database stores data for messages, channels, users, events, configuration, etc.
Open source version of Mirth Connect uses Apache Derby database
Performance decreases at about 100,000 messages
Not recommended for production use if storing message data
Mirth Connect can be configured to use other databases as its internal database
PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server officially supported
Create mirthdb database using the database server admin tool.
Mirth Connect Server will automatically create schema and tables if they don't exist
A database to connect to should already be created, but can be empty
Back up server configuration before changing
Select database and set attributes using Mirth Connect Server Manager
Or directly edit mirth.properties in conf folder of the Mirth Connect install directory
Data will remain on old database schema
Restart the Mirth Connect Service
PostgreSQL is recommended database for production environments
Used on Mirth Appliances
Powerful open source database solution

7. E4X (ECMAScript for XML)