MQ

MQ

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  • 1.  Does Upgrading Disrupt Applications?

    Posted 10/11/16 07:29 PM

    Does upgrading the IBM MQ Appliance have the possibility to disrupt more applications because it's able to take more messages? It is already a problem upgrading a busy server from one MQ release to the next to test all the connected applications. Any recommendations on how to do it now with ten times more applications connecting to one server?



  • 2.  RE: Does Upgrading Disrupt Applications?

    Posted 10/12/16 02:15 AM

    Take advantage of the built-in HA capabilities and have an HA-ed pair of Appliances, then you can be always on during the upgrade.

    Cheers

    Morag



  • 3.  RE: Does Upgrading Disrupt Applications?

    Posted 11/01/16 06:39 PM

    I've just gone through this with a client who implemented a shared hub as a way of condensing MQ footprint.  What they failed to take into account was that if upgrading underneath apps is hard when they have dedicated queue managers, upgrading underneath 20, 50, or hundreds of them at once will be impossible for pragmatic reasons.  You can't disrupt many applications before it becomes necessary to roll back, even in Dev.

    Implementing a shared hub requires managing an array of multi-tenancy issues.  Among other things it demands a high degree of application isolation from both a security and a resource/performance perspective.  In shops that haven't had a densly populated shared environment the license cost savings is offset in large part by the added complexity of multi-tenancy - assuming it's done well.  If it isn't done well the savings are more than offset by downtime, financial losses, and reputational losses.

    One key aspect of shared hubs that minimizes downtime is a multi-version environment.  Never upgrade.  Provide concurrent versions of MQ and a window within which to migrate the app to the new version.  A properly designed app and MQ infrastructure can relocate client apps with downtime measured in seconds.  The concurrent cversioning can be through multi-installation or by having servers at different MQ versions.  Once all apps are migrated off the old version, it gets upgraded and redeployed at the leding edge of the version matrix.



  • 4.  RE: Does Upgrading Disrupt Applications?

    Posted 11/09/16 06:56 PM

    Thank you, very helpful info!