Dear MQ experts,

Hope you all doing well!

I'm reaching out to request your expert opinions.

I have an application sending different types of data to its downstream applications through MQ. 

Eg: In Sports Topic, we send 3 types of data Cricket News , Baseball news and Soccer News. Consumers subscribe to their interest. 

I'm reading about different components in pub/sub here in below IBM doc-

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ibm-mq/9.3?topic=components-topics

I could do this setup in a qmgr in below 3 different ways . Just want to understand what are the benefits choosing from one over the other or if there are any certain uses cases that you have chosen one over the other. pls share. 

1.) stream and topics

2.) Topic strings

3.) Admin topic objs

Please share your views as MQ administrator.  

Thank you for your time!

Hello: Some thoughts.

a) The idea of a "stream" for topics is an old one, which was how MQ working until V6 (called "queued Pub/Sub"). In V7 a new model was introduced which does not use streams. I seldom see anybody using streams, and the few times that I saw it, the customers were confused. Thus, in my opinion, do not use streams.

b) The "topic string" is the glue that ties the publishers and the subscribers. This is used for ad-hoc ("on-the-fly" which do not survive a restart of the queue manager) and for administrative Topic Objects (which survive the restart).

c) The 2 main purposes for Administrative Topic Objects are to allow the survival of a Topic String of the restart of the queue manager, AND to have access/authority control on the topic hierarchy / topic tree.
.
I hope that this is helpful.
Angel Rivera, IBM MQ Support

Dear MQ experts,

Hope you all doing well!

I'm reaching out to request your expert opinions.

I have an application sending different types of data to its downstream applications through MQ. 

Eg: In Sports Topic, we send 3 types of data Cricket News , Baseball news and Soccer News. Consumers subscribe to their interest. 

I'm reading about different components in pub/sub here in below IBM doc-

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ibm-mq/9.3?topic=components-topics

I could do this setup in a qmgr in below 3 different ways . Just want to understand what are the benefits choosing from one over the other or if there are any certain uses cases that you have chosen one over the other. pls share. 

1.) stream and topics

2.) Topic strings

3.) Admin topic objs

Please share your views as MQ administrator.  

Thank you for your time!

Thank you Angel Rivera! That clears up my confusion about these options, especially a.) streams for topics. 

I haven't worked on MQv6. I started my MQ journey from v7. 

Why do IBM still carry over streams for topics ? Is it to support legacy application codes?

It definitely confuses after the 'Stream' queues coming in ,with these two terms.

Appreciate your time and guidance.

Hello: Some thoughts.

a) The idea of a "stream" for topics is an old one, which was how MQ working until V6 (called "queued Pub/Sub"). In V7 a new model was introduced which does not use streams. I seldom see anybody using streams, and the few times that I saw it, the customers were confused. Thus, in my opinion, do not use streams.

b) The "topic string" is the glue that ties the publishers and the subscribers. This is used for ad-hoc ("on-the-fly" which do not survive a restart of the queue manager) and for administrative Topic Objects (which survive the restart).

c) The 2 main purposes for Administrative Topic Objects are to allow the survival of a Topic String of the restart of the queue manager, AND to have access/authority control on the topic hierarchy / topic tree.
.
I hope that this is helpful.
Angel Rivera, IBM MQ Support

Dear MQ experts,

Hope you all doing well!

I'm reaching out to request your expert opinions.

I have an application sending different types of data to its downstream applications through MQ. 

Eg: In Sports Topic, we send 3 types of data Cricket News , Baseball news and Soccer News. Consumers subscribe to their interest. 

I'm reading about different components in pub/sub here in below IBM doc-

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ibm-mq/9.3?topic=components-topics

I could do this setup in a qmgr in below 3 different ways . Just want to understand what are the benefits choosing from one over the other or if there are any certain uses cases that you have chosen one over the other. pls share. 

1.) stream and topics

2.) Topic strings

3.) Admin topic objs

Please share your views as MQ administrator.  

Thank you for your time!

Hello Vignesh:
Thank you for your kind words!
The old concept of "streams and topics" was kept in V7 to allow for the migration from V6 of legacy applications. To try to reduce confusion, the old style was renamed "queued Pub/Sub". One huge key difference between styles is this: in V7 the queue manager really know that Pub/Sub is going on. In the old style, the queue manager did not know that Pub/Sub was happening, and an external process called the broker, was in charge of using queues in the queue manager to emulate the topics. One big problem with the V6 stuff, is that it was very easy for the broker configuration and associated queues and it was difficult to "Clean" the stuff. Thus, please do not even try to experiment with this old style. Not worth it!
.
The new feature of "stream queues" has nothing to do with the old "stream topics", and yes, it can be a bit confusing overloading the term "stream" in two different/separate contexts.
The new stream queues do not use Pub/Sub, but they are very useful if you want to have an exact duplicate (well, as much as possible) of received messages.
.
Thanks!
Angel

Thank you Angel Rivera! That clears up my confusion about these options, especially a.) streams for topics. 

I haven't worked on MQv6. I started my MQ journey from v7. 

Why do IBM still carry over streams for topics ? Is it to support legacy application codes?

It definitely confuses after the 'Stream' queues coming in ,with these two terms.

Appreciate your time and guidance.

Hello: Some thoughts.

a) The idea of a "stream" for topics is an old one, which was how MQ working until V6 (called "queued Pub/Sub"). In V7 a new model was introduced which does not use streams. I seldom see anybody using streams, and the few times that I saw it, the customers were confused. Thus, in my opinion, do not use streams.

b) The "topic string" is the glue that ties the publishers and the subscribers. This is used for ad-hoc ("on-the-fly" which do not survive a restart of the queue manager) and for administrative Topic Objects (which survive the restart).

c) The 2 main purposes for Administrative Topic Objects are to allow the survival of a Topic String of the restart of the queue manager, AND to have access/authority control on the topic hierarchy / topic tree.
.
I hope that this is helpful.
Angel Rivera, IBM MQ Support

Dear MQ experts,

Hope you all doing well!

I'm reaching out to request your expert opinions.

I have an application sending different types of data to its downstream applications through MQ. 

Eg: In Sports Topic, we send 3 types of data Cricket News , Baseball news and Soccer News. Consumers subscribe to their interest. 

I'm reading about different components in pub/sub here in below IBM doc-

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ibm-mq/9.3?topic=components-topics

I could do this setup in a qmgr in below 3 different ways . Just want to understand what are the benefits choosing from one over the other or if there are any certain uses cases that you have chosen one over the other. pls share. 

1.) stream and topics

2.) Topic strings

3.) Admin topic objs

Please share your views as MQ administrator.  

Thank you for your time!