With hybrid cloud becoming the norm, “observability” is a vital capability an enterprise must have, to ensure the health of varied platforms in the hybrid environment is as expected. IBM zSystems Application Performance Management Connect (zAPM Connect), working with Instana and AppDynamics, provides visibility into IBM zSystems platform, by tracking transactions that flow from distributed platforms into IBM zSystems.

For example, a transaction originating from a mobile device may flow through multiple distributed servers before it initiates a CICS transaction on IBM zSystems and the transaction in turn may be talking to DB2 on z/OS. zAPM supports transaction tracking on IBM zSystems across CICS, MQ, DB2 and IMS subsystems. The detailed flows supported by zAPM Connect are documented in the manual.

One such new flow is the CICS-MQ-CICS flow. zAPM Connect customers may have the need to track a transaction that flows from one CICS region to another CICS region, with MQ as the intermediary.

The flow and the process is described in the following figure

Without the CICS-MQ-CICS support, the UI rendered will display MQ as the backend of CICS region 1. For example, the AppDynamics UI would look like

With the CICS -MQ-CICS support in place, zAPM Connect tracks further downstream as depicted below.

Considerations

To ensure seamless integration of the new feature in a MQ environment, it is recommended that, either the queue in the second CICS region is defined with “Property Control” set to NONE or the application tolerates the new RFH header added for tracking purposes. In addition, zAPM Connect configuration must be in place to track specific queues. The details to do the said configuration can be found in the zAPM Connect manual.

Summary

Without CICS-MQ-CICS support, customers can track transactions only up to first CICS region and the queue manager will be rendered as a back end to the first CICS region. Providing this additional feature for customers using IBM zSystems APM Connect enables transaction tracking in the downstream CICS regions i.e. CICS-MQ-CICS and thereby better observability of such transactions on IBM zSystems.

Note:

1. The CICS-MQ-CICS support in zAPM Connect is available for download for existing customers.  CICS-MQ-CICS support in Instana on IBM z/OS will be available for download soon (early summer of 2022).
2. Join the AIOps on zSystems community here.
3. Research the zSystems AIOps product portfolio here.