Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Hi Peter,

I'm afraid you've landed in a bit of a mess. MQ v6 is so old that it was discontinued before any currently supported version of MQ was available (EOS was September 2006). 

That means that you probably won't be able to download a version of MQ that you could upgrade to from MQ v6. The supported upgrade path over time would have been to upgrade from 6 to 7 or 7.1 or 7.2, then upgrade to 7.5 or 8, then upgrade to 9 and then to 9.3. Depending on exactly which migrations were supported some of those steps could have been skipped. However, there is now no way that is publicly accessible that I can find that will tell you which migrations were supported.

I believe that your best option would be to:

• get a copy of the ms03 from github (https://github.com/ibm-messaging/ms03.saveqmgr/blob/master/README.md) and build it, or install a current version of MQ on another system and set up to use dmpmqmsg in client mode
• extract security settings using amqoamd -s
• extract the configuration using saveqmgr (ms03) or dmpmqcfg (in client mode)
• delete the queue manager
• uninstall MQ v6
• install MQ v9.3 using whatever is your preferred technique
• create the queue manager again
• use the saved configuration file to restore your configuration using runmqsc
• use the amqoamd output to recreate permissions (the export will be a set of setmqaut statements you run in your shell)
• update SSL ciphers on channels to currently supported TLS1.2 or TLS1.3 ciphers (or generic ciphers)
• configure MQ 9.3 queue manager security settings to enable your old client applications to run, or else upgrade the client configurations
• test and test again

Do all of that in your test environment to uncover any issues and optimize the process before trying it in production.

Best of luck.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Queue Manager data is actually migrated when a queue manager is first started, rather than at install time.

Although there's no documented direct migration path from V6.0.2.4 to V9.3.3 there is also no documented need to start any of the queue managers after any intermediate install. The queue manager runtime code is intended to be able to migrate across all releases, however IBM only tests migration across supported releases and so there's a chance of finding problems (for which I believe an APAR should be accepted) through running largely untested code.

Using dmpmqmsg and it's friends to take a backup of the queue manager will work in some cases, but it depends upon the queue manager not having any active units of work, will not maintain channel sequence numbers, etc etc. 

I'd be tempted to create a new queue manager on a test machine at the required level and then overwrite the queue manager data and recovery log of the new queue manager with that of 6.0.2.4 queue manager, then start the new queue manager and test that all of the queue manager objects can be accessed.  If the test is successful then follow a procedure similar to Neil's above but instead of restoring the objects and messages from the output of the various dmpmq... commands 'simply' replace the queue manager data and logs of the new queue manager with those of the old queue manager.

Hi Peter,

I'm afraid you've landed in a bit of a mess. MQ v6 is so old that it was discontinued before any currently supported version of MQ was available (EOS was September 2006). 

That means that you probably won't be able to download a version of MQ that you could upgrade to from MQ v6. The supported upgrade path over time would have been to upgrade from 6 to 7 or 7.1 or 7.2, then upgrade to 7.5 or 8, then upgrade to 9 and then to 9.3. Depending on exactly which migrations were supported some of those steps could have been skipped. However, there is now no way that is publicly accessible that I can find that will tell you which migrations were supported.

I believe that your best option would be to:

• get a copy of the ms03 from github (https://github.com/ibm-messaging/ms03.saveqmgr/blob/master/README.md) and build it, or install a current version of MQ on another system and set up to use dmpmqmsg in client mode
• extract security settings using amqoamd -s
• extract the configuration using saveqmgr (ms03) or dmpmqcfg (in client mode)
• delete the queue manager
• uninstall MQ v6
• install MQ v9.3 using whatever is your preferred technique
• create the queue manager again
• use the saved configuration file to restore your configuration using runmqsc
• use the amqoamd output to recreate permissions (the export will be a set of setmqaut statements you run in your shell)
• update SSL ciphers on channels to currently supported TLS1.2 or TLS1.3 ciphers (or generic ciphers)
• configure MQ 9.3 queue manager security settings to enable your old client applications to run, or else upgrade the client configurations
• test and test again

Do all of that in your test environment to uncover any issues and optimize the process before trying it in production.

Best of luck.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Queue Manager data is actually migrated when a queue manager is first started, rather than at install time.

Although there's no documented direct migration path from V6.0.2.4 to V9.3.3 there is also no documented need to start any of the queue managers after any intermediate install. The queue manager runtime code is intended to be able to migrate across all releases, however IBM only tests migration across supported releases and so there's a chance of finding problems (for which I believe an APAR should be accepted) through running largely untested code.

Using dmpmqmsg and it's friends to take a backup of the queue manager will work in some cases, but it depends upon the queue manager not having any active units of work, will not maintain channel sequence numbers, etc etc. 

I'd be tempted to create a new queue manager on a test machine at the required level and then overwrite the queue manager data and recovery log of the new queue manager with that of 6.0.2.4 queue manager, then start the new queue manager and test that all of the queue manager objects can be accessed.  If the test is successful then follow a procedure similar to Neil's above but instead of restoring the objects and messages from the output of the various dmpmq... commands 'simply' replace the queue manager data and logs of the new queue manager with those of the old queue manager.

Hi Peter,

I'm afraid you've landed in a bit of a mess. MQ v6 is so old that it was discontinued before any currently supported version of MQ was available (EOS was September 2006). 

That means that you probably won't be able to download a version of MQ that you could upgrade to from MQ v6. The supported upgrade path over time would have been to upgrade from 6 to 7 or 7.1 or 7.2, then upgrade to 7.5 or 8, then upgrade to 9 and then to 9.3. Depending on exactly which migrations were supported some of those steps could have been skipped. However, there is now no way that is publicly accessible that I can find that will tell you which migrations were supported.

I believe that your best option would be to:

• get a copy of the ms03 from github (https://github.com/ibm-messaging/ms03.saveqmgr/blob/master/README.md) and build it, or install a current version of MQ on another system and set up to use dmpmqmsg in client mode
• extract security settings using amqoamd -s
• extract the configuration using saveqmgr (ms03) or dmpmqcfg (in client mode)
• delete the queue manager
• uninstall MQ v6
• install MQ v9.3 using whatever is your preferred technique
• create the queue manager again
• use the saved configuration file to restore your configuration using runmqsc
• use the amqoamd output to recreate permissions (the export will be a set of setmqaut statements you run in your shell)
• update SSL ciphers on channels to currently supported TLS1.2 or TLS1.3 ciphers (or generic ciphers)
• configure MQ 9.3 queue manager security settings to enable your old client applications to run, or else upgrade the client configurations
• test and test again

Do all of that in your test environment to uncover any issues and optimize the process before trying it in production.

Best of luck.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Queue Manager data is actually migrated when a queue manager is first started, rather than at install time.

Although there's no documented direct migration path from V6.0.2.4 to V9.3.3 there is also no documented need to start any of the queue managers after any intermediate install. The queue manager runtime code is intended to be able to migrate across all releases, however IBM only tests migration across supported releases and so there's a chance of finding problems (for which I believe an APAR should be accepted) through running largely untested code.

Using dmpmqmsg and it's friends to take a backup of the queue manager will work in some cases, but it depends upon the queue manager not having any active units of work, will not maintain channel sequence numbers, etc etc. 

I'd be tempted to create a new queue manager on a test machine at the required level and then overwrite the queue manager data and recovery log of the new queue manager with that of 6.0.2.4 queue manager, then start the new queue manager and test that all of the queue manager objects can be accessed.  If the test is successful then follow a procedure similar to Neil's above but instead of restoring the objects and messages from the output of the various dmpmq... commands 'simply' replace the queue manager data and logs of the new queue manager with those of the old queue manager.

Hi Peter,

I'm afraid you've landed in a bit of a mess. MQ v6 is so old that it was discontinued before any currently supported version of MQ was available (EOS was September 2006). 

That means that you probably won't be able to download a version of MQ that you could upgrade to from MQ v6. The supported upgrade path over time would have been to upgrade from 6 to 7 or 7.1 or 7.2, then upgrade to 7.5 or 8, then upgrade to 9 and then to 9.3. Depending on exactly which migrations were supported some of those steps could have been skipped. However, there is now no way that is publicly accessible that I can find that will tell you which migrations were supported.

I believe that your best option would be to:

• get a copy of the ms03 from github (https://github.com/ibm-messaging/ms03.saveqmgr/blob/master/README.md) and build it, or install a current version of MQ on another system and set up to use dmpmqmsg in client mode
• extract security settings using amqoamd -s
• extract the configuration using saveqmgr (ms03) or dmpmqcfg (in client mode)
• delete the queue manager
• uninstall MQ v6
• install MQ v9.3 using whatever is your preferred technique
• create the queue manager again
• use the saved configuration file to restore your configuration using runmqsc
• use the amqoamd output to recreate permissions (the export will be a set of setmqaut statements you run in your shell)
• update SSL ciphers on channels to currently supported TLS1.2 or TLS1.3 ciphers (or generic ciphers)
• configure MQ 9.3 queue manager security settings to enable your old client applications to run, or else upgrade the client configurations
• test and test again

Do all of that in your test environment to uncover any issues and optimize the process before trying it in production.

Best of luck.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.

Hello,

I have been asked by my client if I would be able to be able to get them migrated from WebSphere MQ 6.0.2.4 to IBM MQ 9.3.3.0.  I haven't worked a lot with MQ in the past so I would really appreciate any tips, etc to assist me in getting this done.  I guess at this point I'm mostly needing some high level information centered around the initial steps needed to move off MQ version 6 to a version that's closer to MQ 9.3 as this is the part of the migration where I'm not finding much information on the WEB.  I believe the client wants to use the USIL for the MQ 9.3 installation on the AIX 7.2 LPAR that MQ 6.0.2.4 is currently live on ... the plan is to get upgraded from MQ version 6 to a version that will work alongside the USIL (MQ 9.3) on the same LPAR.

 Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much - Peter.