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IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance firmware 9.1.5 Continuous Delivery updates are available

By Ian Harwood posted Thu April 02, 2020 10:10 AM

  

IBM MQ 9.1.5 is the next continuous delivery release of IBM MQ, delivering further incremental updates to MQ. To recap, here are your MQ and MQ Appliance options at this point:

New MQ Appliance M2002 models will ship with the LTS firmware onboard by default, but you can move at any time to the CD firmware if there is function of interest.

Where can I get IBM MQ 9.1.5 from?

MQ 9.1.5 has been delivered concurrently on distributed, z/OS, MQ Appliance and IBM MQ on IBM Cloud managed service platforms. For any queries about what each Program entitles you to install check out the MQ license information page.  

  • Distributed platforms: PassportAdvantage for AIX, Linux and Windows platforms (Search for part number CJ4ZVML)
  • z/OS: shopZ for z/OS. Each PID has a Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery orderable feature.
    The MQ for z/OS 9.1.5 PTFs will deliver the function initially, with shopZ install images being available on 24th April 2020. Search for
    • APAR PH21291 for IBM MQ for z/OS
    • APAR PH22377 for MQ Managed File Transfer for z/OS
    • APAR PH22375 for MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition.
      z/OS offerings are:
      • 5655-MQ9 – IBM MQ for z/OS
      • 5655-VU9 – IBM MQ for z/OS Value Unit Edition
      • 5655-AV9 – IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS
        This is a bundle of MQ Advanced Message Security and MQ Managed File Transfer capability (no MQ entitlement included)
      • 5655-AV1 – IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition
        This is a bundle of MQ Advanced Message Security, MQ Managed File Transfer and MQ for z/OS Value Unit Edition capability
  • MQ Appliance: The IBM MQ Appliance firmware image can be obtained from Fix Central and applied to the M2002, M2001 and M2000 hardware models.
  • IBM MQ on IBM Cloud: IBM MQ on IBM Cloud managed service, which has 3 pre-configured queue manager sizes, a Lite (Trial) plan and options for placing the queue manager in an IBM Cloud or AWS data center.
  • Withdrawn offerings: Subscription & Support can be renewed.

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What’s new in MQ 9.1.5?

IBM MQ and MQ Appliance 9.1.5 announcement letters:

Updates in this release of IBM MQ include:

MQ updates across all platforms

What's new/changed - IBM MQ

  • MQ Internet Pass-Thru (MQIPT)
    MQ 9.1.4 integrated MQ IPT capability into the standard IBM MQ product offering. MQ 9.1.5 adds some additional security options for how passwords are stored
  • IBM MQ client updates
    • Java 11 is now a supported runtime for MQ Java / JMS applications
    • Simplified creation of .NET core applications with updated .NET core samples and project templates
  • Publishing messages using REST
    In addition to send, receive and browse, publish is added as a new opertion in the REST messaging interface.

MQ on distributed platforms (Windows, Linux and AIX)

  • Uniform clusters improved monitoring
    Uniform clusters is a relatively new concept in IBM MQ where IBM MQ will automaticall rebalance applications across available queue managers. In MQ 9.1.5 additional monitoring capabilities are added to help you understand how your applications are being mioved between queue managers.
  • Increased control for IBM MQ usage of available storage
    It is now possible to set storage limits for individual queues, and the 2TB limit has been removed.
  • TLS 1.3 support phase 2
    • IBM MQ 9.1.4 added suport for TLS 1.3 connections between queue managers and C/C++ client applications.
    • IBM MQ 9.1.5 adds TLS 1.3 support for Java and JMS client applications (providing the chosen Java runtime supports TLS 1.3).
    • TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 are considered weak and have to be specifically enabled via a switch for MQ offerings. The MQ 9.1.4 announcement letter adds a statement of direction to say that we intend to remove these after the next MQ Long Term Support release.
  • New web user interface look and feel
  • MQ Advanced: Replicated Data Queue Manager (RDQM) updates
    • A user application data directory has been added to the set of directories that get replicated between the nodes. This directory can be used to replicate any required MQ application data.
    • MQ Advanced 9.1.5 adds the ability to have asynchronous disater recovery between two highly available RDQM sites. In a failure situation the remaning site can take over the additional workload whilst continuing to be highly available.
  • MQ Advanced: Reduction of user permissions required to deploy the MQ certified container within OpenShift
    This makes it easier to include IBM MQ within more tightly controlled environments.

MQ on z/OS

What's new/changed - IBM MQ

  • Support for data set encryption is extended to shared message data sets
    With the data set encryption support delivered in MQ 9.1.4 for active log sets and pages sets, this gives complete z/OS data set encryption support to queue sharing groups. With this enhancement, persisted MQ data can be further protected by using z/OS data set encryption capabilities as part of a pervasive encryption strategy
  • MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition: Use of Aspera fasp.io streaming for MQ messages
    This enables MQ messages to be sent over the Aspera fasp protocol in place of TCP/IP, which in some scenarios can have performance benefits.
    The Aspera fasp.io Gateway is for use with queue mangers that have MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition, MQ Advanced, or IBM MQ Appliance entitlement.

MQ Appliance

What's new/changed - IBM MQ Appliance
  • New capabilities of MQ V9.1.5 base except the updated web user interface look and feel.
  • Simplifed Disaster Recovery for highly available queue managers.
    Configuration of disaster recovery with highly available queue managers no longer requires a floating IP address. This removes the requirement for the two appliances in the high availability group to be in the same subnet.
  • An option to generate error reports to persistent RAID storage
    The appliance can be configured to output generated error reports to the mqdiag: filesystem, so they persist if the appliance is shutdown or restarted.
  • An enhancement to reset the appliance SSH host key
    A new SSH host key for the appliance can be generated using the reset-ssh-keys command.
  • The ability to format trace on the appliance using the dspmqtrc command

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Can I get a copy of IBM MQ for development purposes?
IBM%2BMQ%2BDeveloper%2BEssentials.png

  • Yes, you can. A free download to use for development on Windows and Linux x86-64 is available from the IBM MQ download page
  • An IBM MQ Advanced for Developers Docker image is also available on Docker Hub

The LearnMQ site is regularly updated with a mix of tutorials and essential getting started information, and offers you the opportunity to earn an IBM MQ Developer Essentials badge.

The full list of Developer download options are below.

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Downloadable resources

A number of MQ components are made available on IBM Fix Central and elsewhere for ease of download. Below are the links to the available components. Where applicable, they will show the latest V9.1 Continuous Delivery (CD) and Long Term Support (LTS) updates for each component. Be sure to know which you require!

Clients:

Components:

Containers:

Development:

Tip: Try opening the links in a private browsing tab if they don’t correctly resolve.
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MQ System Requirements and documentation

The system requirements are documented at the links below. IBM MQ Continuous Delivery releases are being made available on z/OS, Microsoft Windows, Linux on x86-64, Linux on IBM z Systems, Linux on Little Endian Power (RHEL, SLES and Ubuntu) and AIX.

Further information can be found in the IBM MQ Knowledge Center and the IBM MQ Appliance Knowledge Center

System requirements additions:
  • Windows 2019
    • MQ 9.1.0.4 in addition to previously declared support for MQ 9.1.4
    • Except for MQ Explorer due to dependencies
  • Oracle 18c and 19c
    • MQ 9.0.0.9 LTS
      Full support. MQ Client XA, MQ Classes for Java (JDBC) and MFT database logger
    • MQ 9.1.4 and MQ 9.1.0.4 LTS (previously declared)
      Full support. MQ Client XA, MQ Classes for Java (JDBC) and MFT database logger

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What function has released in previous updates?

IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1.4 Continuous Delivery Release
IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1.3 Continuous Delivery Release

IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1.2 Continuous Delivery Release
IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1.1 Continuous Delivery Release
IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1 Long Term Support (inc. new M2002 hardware model)

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Remind me how the Continuous Delivery support model works…

Its worth reminding you what the Continuous Delivery support model means for MQ.

  • MQ 9.1 LTS is supported for a minimum of 5 years from its availability in July 2018, and will receive fix only updates through fixpacks versioned 9.1.0.1, 9.1.0.2 and so on.
  • MQ CD updates will be delivered with the 3rd digit change – 9.1.1, 9.1.2 and so on. Defect support for a CD release is available for 12 months from the availability of the release or while it remains one of the two most recent CD releases, whichever is longer, so you need to keep moving forward with the MQ CD releases.
  • MQ CD updates will be delivered with new function enabled by default.
  • The IBM MQ FAQ for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery Releases will hopefully answer most of your questions.

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