[Info-vax] MQ on Alpha ?

[seasoned_geek]

When it was just MQ Series V2.X then V5.X, you didn't need Java or
anything.  IBM has gone to great lengths lately to hide all of the MQM
command line tools and documentation, trying instead, to force every
shop to have one useless Windows box to install a Windows GUI
management tool.  The GUI management tool is liked by some because in
theory you can drag and drop most of your functionality.  I do believe
some of the new GUI needs some Java and other OpenSource tools
installed to be functional.

That said, MQ does not need any of that stuff to run on OpenVMS.  You
do not need any of that stuff to create a queue, add a user, or any of
the other stuff   PROVIDED YOUR QUEUE MANAGER IS ON OPENVMS.

There was at one time, I don't know if it still exists today because I
don't do systems management work, the option to install "client only"
on OpenVMS.  This was a horrible thing which removed most of the grace
and beauty OpenVMS provided to the product.  When "client only" was
installed, you could not create or host a queue on the OpenVMS
platform.  All of the needed libraries were there for you to open a
remote queue manager and connect to a remote queue, but you were
completely screwed if you wanted a trigger on a queue to fire and
cause something to happen on your OpenVMS machine.

Some MBAs thought it was "cheaper" to install client only on OpenVMS,
so that is what they did.  Pardon my language, but it is nothing short
of an abortion.  That whole guarranteed delivery concept MQ tosses
around, well fugedabout-it when you are hosted on Windows or any other
platform which doesn't provide a distributed lock manager, two phased
commit, and file journaling.  If you are hosted on an IBM mainframe
running OS/Z, an AS/400 running OS/400, or any OpenVMS cluster, you
are golden.  If you try to "save money" by using a Linux, Windows, or
Unix box to "host" your queue manager, then consider yourself screwed
with your pants on.

It doesn't matter how much redundancy that SAN is providing your data
once written, when you are running in some floating virtual blade
environment, you are going to lose messages.  There is no way around
it.  Blades and low end operating systems operate based upon the swarm
principle  "Many will die, but some will survive"  The problem is that
the "many who die" tend to take the message they were attempting to
queue with them.  When the OS kernel does not provide two phase commit
natively, you can only go so far in providing it at what amounts to an
application level.  When the $300 PC you have running as an $8000
blade gives up the ghost, it takes every virtual world it was running
with it.  You lose everything it was working on.  If the message
queing wasn't at an "inconvenient point" in processing, you will still
have it, most often you will not.  At least that has been my
experience.

Put the queue manager on a bullet proof platform and MQ Series is a
bullet proof product.  Put it on a cheap hunk of...well...you get the
picture.




On Dec 10, 2:57 pm, Guy Peleg <makleeengineer... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 10, 3:00 pm, Jan-Erik Söderholm <jan-erik.soderh... at telia.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi !
>
> > We are investigating using MQ on a couple of Alpha's.
>
> > There are a few things that my browsning of the docs
> > didn't seemed to answer...
>
> > Do I need the Java kit on the Alpha's ?
>
> > It seems as some part of the license registration uses
> > Java, but there is also a (stripped down ?) JVM shipped
> > with the install kit to be used in the lic registration.
> > As far as I understood from the docs, that would be
> > enought for the installation to work without needing
> > a full Java install on the Alpha's...
>
> > It seems as the "MQ-folkes" also want to use some Tivoli
> > tools for managing MQ, and that might need Java !?
>
> > (No, we don't have Java installed right now, and I'm not
> > a major Java-fan myself...)
>
> > The apps using MQ will be in COBOL, which seems just fine
> > from the viewpoint of MQ.
>
> > The current MQ kit for VMS is some 6.x kit, right ?
> > The current MQ version seems to be 7.x, but I don't
> > think that is a major problem, or ?
>
> > Anything else in regard to MQ on VMS that I'd better
> > know about ? :-)
>
> > I'm not *that* concerned, IBM is in many respects (quality
> > of the documentation and so on) quite like the old DEC. :-)
>
> > Regards,
> > Jan-Erik.
>
> If I recall correctly, you need Java installed to register the
> license.
>
> The latest VMS kit is V6. Make sure you are using the latest SYS kit.
>
> Guy Peleg
> Maklee Engineeringwww.maklee.com