Monitoring IBM MQ with BizTalk360

BizTalk360 currently has capabilities to monitor MSMQ and Azure Service Bus queues. From a number of customers who are using IBM MQ, we received many requests to introduce monitoring IBM MQ capability into BizTalk360. They mainly had following monitoring requirements:

• Ability to monitor the accessibility of the queue manager and queues
• Ability to monitor the growth of queues and corresponding backout queues

We are happy to announce that in BizTalk360’s upcoming release 8.4, we are bringing a new feature to monitor the IBM MQs, configured in BizTalk receive locations and send ports.

Our design goals

• Simple monitoring configuration: We wanted to simplify the process of configuring a queue for monitoring. To achieve this, we list all the receive locations and send ports that are configured with either MQSeries or MQSC adapters and with little or no additional information you can start monitoring these queues
• Identifying backout queues: We wanted to identify the backout queues automatically and start monitoring them as well 

Monitoring IBM MQ Queues

In BizTalk360, monitoring IBM MQ can be found in the Queues section of Manage Mapping main menu, along with MSMQ and Azure Service Bus Queues tabs. The IBM MQ tab automatically lists all the available Send Ports/Receive Locations which are using MQSeries or MQSC Adapter. This helps the users to easily identify and monitor all the queues mapped with Receive Locations/Send Ports. To configure a queue for monitoring, click on the Config gear icon as shown in the above picture. Most of the queue details will be fetched from the port bindings. However, the details fetched depends on the kind of the adapter that the port is configured with.

MQSeries	Queue Manager Name Queue Name Transport Type	Channel Name Connection Name User Id Password SSL Cipher Specification (Optional) SSL Peer Name (Optional)
MQSC adapter	Queue Manager Name Queue Name Transport Type Channel Name Connection Name User id	Password SSL Cipher Specification (Optional) SSL Peer Name (Optional)

The blade which opens when a user clicks the Config gear icon is as shown in the picture below. Following are the threshold types on which you can monitor a queue.

Threshold Type	Explanation
Current Queue Depth	This threshold type represents the current depth of the queue. Example conditions: Warn Me If Current Queue Depth is Greater than 100 Error If Current Queue Depth is Greater than 200
Current Queue Usage%	This threshold type represents the % usage of the current queue. It uses the queue properties, Current Queue Depth and Maximum Queue Depth to calculate the percentage usage. Example condition: Warn Me If Current Queue Usage % is Greater than 60 Error If Current Queue Usage % is Greater than 80
Backout Queue Depth	This threshold type represents the current depth of backout queue corresponding to queue configured in the receive location/send port. Example conditions: Warn Me If Backout Queue Depth is Greater than 100 Error If Backout Queue Depth is Greater than 200
Backout Queue Usage%	This threshold type represents the percentage usage of the backout queue corresponding to queue configured in the receive location/send port. Example condition: Warn Me If Backout Queue Usage % is Greater than 60 Error If Backout Queue Usage % is Greater than 80

Once the thresholds are configured and saved, the monitoring conditions will be evaluated and the status of the queue will be displayed in the grid. The Monitoring dashboard displays the overall status of the alarm including IBM MQs as shown in the picture below.

Conclusion

BizTalk360 already had features to monitor MSMQ and Azure Service Bus queues. With its latest release 8.4, it fills the gap by bringing in the capability of monitoring IBM MQ. It’s yet another example of BizTalk360’s commitment to listen to its customers and community. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please write to us at support@biztalk360.com. You can get started with monitoring IBM MQ by downloading the 14-day free trial of BizTalk360.