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IBM MQ, IBM MQ for z/OS and IBM MQ Appliance firmware 9.2 Long Term Support releases are available

By Ian Harwood posted Thu July 23, 2020 09:05 AM

  

IBM MQ 9.2 Long Term Support rolls up all the new capabilities delivered over the last 2 years in the 9.1.1 to 9.1.5 Continuous Delivery releases and also delivers on the IBM i operating system. MQ 9.2 LTS provides minimum 5 years defect support from initial release. 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 9.2 LTS from?

MQ 9.2 LTS delivers concurrently on distributed platforms, MQ Appliance and IBM MQ on IBM Cloud managed service platforms. MQ for z/OS product offerings will follow on 11th Sept 2020. For any queries about what each Program entitles you to install check out the MQ license information page.  

  • Distributed platforms: Download instructions for AIX, IBM i, Linux and Windows
  • z/OS: shopZ for z/OS - will be available on 11th Sept 2020
    Note that on z/OS there are CD and LTS orderable features in shopZ. They are functionally identical at 9.2 but you must ensure you install the one that matches the upgrade path you wish to follow - LTS or CD.
    • 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: On Fix Central and applied to the M2002 and M2001 hardware models.
  • IBM MQ on IBM Cloud: IBM MQ on IBM Cloud managed service, which has different T-shirt size plans and options for placing the queue manager in an IBM Cloud or AWS data center.

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What’s new in MQ 9.2 LTS?

IBM MQ and MQ Appliance 9.2 announcement letters:

Updates in this release of IBM MQ include:

MQ updates across all platforms

What's new/changed - IBM MQ
IBM MQ 9.2 across all platforms rolls up capability delivered in the MQ 9.1 Continuous Delivery updates in to the next Long Term Support release. My blog posts for the CD releases summarize the capability delivered over that time.

  • System requirement updates
    With MQ 9.2 LTS being a new LTS baseline it is normal for us to lift our minimum OS and other software support, removing some older versions from our support matrix. See the system requirements section for the key changes.


    We have also created a new MQ Advanced for Developers build available as-is for the Raspberry Pi (readme)
  • MQ Internet Pass-Thru (MQIPT)
    • Command port security enhancements including TLS and authentication of actions.
    • HSM (Hardware Security Module) support for IPT Admin.
  • Security enhancements
    • MQ Advanced Message Security Java keystores, Managed File Transfer plus the bridges for Salesforce and Blockchain have additional security options for how passwords are stored
    • PKCS#11 support in MQ AMS for Java and JMS clients, including HSMs. with IBM and Oracle Java Runtime Environments.
  • An updated web user interface for improved user experience
  • MQ Advanced: IBM Aspera fasp.io update to 1.10
    The fasp.io gateway is available on Linux and Windows platforms and is available with MQ Advanced for z/OS Value Unit Edition, MQ Advanced and MQ Appliance.  In some scenarios fasp.io can improve the message throughput between MQ destinations.

MQ on distributed platforms (Windows, Linux, IBM i and AIX)

  • A new MQ update for IBM i
    MQ continuous delivery releases haven't been shipping on IBM i, so this is the first functional update from IBM i since MQ 9.1 LTS.
  • Build your own container support
    IBM MQ delivers MQ in a non-install zip file format that can be used to build container images that run under the OpenShift anyuid security context constraints(SCC) without requiring privilege escalation.
    The zip images are available as continuous delivery updates only, with no long term support option, and can only be used for building container images. Search for part CJ77KML on Passport Advantage.
    There is also an option to try this out with a MQ Advanced for Developers licensed package
  • Linux upgrade in place to streamline the process of upgrading from MQ 9.2
  • .NET Core 3.1 support
    For the IBM MQ Classes for .NET
  • MQ Advanced: Replicated Data Queue Manager (RDQM) RHEL 8 support

MQ on z/OS

What's new/changed - IBM MQ

  • zHyperWrite support for MQ log files
    zHyperWrite can provide significant improvement to MQ log throughput and transactional response times
  • Flexible channel security configuration
    Channels can be configured such that the client and server negotiate the strongest available CipherSpec. The is can help reduce administration and promote stronger security as CipherSpecs get deprecated.

MQ Appliance

What's new/changed - IBM MQ Appliance
  • New capabilities of MQ 9.2 base.
  • Certificate Expiry Notifications.
    The certificate monitor is enhanced to also check certificates in queue manager key stores.
  • Verifying network connectivity
    Ping and traceroute commands have been enhanced to accept a local IP address to enable verification of secondary IP addresses, including HA floating IP addresses.
  • 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.
  • TLS 1.3 support for remote management interfaces

Deprecations

  • The IBM MQ Knowledge Center documents what capability is deprecated and may be removed in a future release.
  • MQ 9.2 LTSR will be the last to provide SSLv3 and TLS 1.0 support. The plan is to remove support in a future CD release after that.
  • The MQ Multicast protocol is deprecated. No further enhancements are planned.
  • All MFT environment variables that begin "FTE" are deprecated. Substitute with ones beginning "BFG"
  • Support Pac MS81 (MQ Internet Pass-Thru) is deprecated because the capability is now included in the main MQ product. Get MQ IPT from here. 
  • On MQ Appliance the log target option to suppress identical events is deprecated

Removals

  • Solaris operating system support. MQ 9.1 LTS is the last release to support Solaris.
  • Support for Microsoft ActiveX IBM MQ classes for .NET are the recommended replacement technology.
  • On MQ Appliance the log target type of syslog-ng is removed

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

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 9.2 Continuous Delivery (CD) and Long Term Support (LTS) updates for each component. Be sure to know which you require!

Fixpacks:

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

MQ 9.2 operating system support
MQ 9.2  Removed compared to MQ 9.1
AIX 7.1 TL5, 7.2 TL3 7.2 TL2
IBM i 7.3, 7.4 7.2
Linux

RHEL 7.6+, 8.0+
SLES 12 SP4, 15 SP1
Ubuntu 18.04

RHEL 7.3, 7.4, 7.5
SLES 12 SP2, SP3, 15 SP0
Ubuntu 16.04
Windows Windows Server 2016, 2019
Windows 10
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows 8.1
z/OS 2.3, 2.4 2.2












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What function has released in previous updates?

IBM MQ and IBM MQ Appliance 9.1.5 Continuous Delivery Release
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

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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 9.2 LTS is supported for a minimum of 5 years from its availability in July 2020, and will receive fix only updates through fixpacks versioned 9.2.0.1, 9.2.0.2 and so on.
  • MQ CD updates will be delivered with the 3rd digit change – 9.2.1, 9.2.2 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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2 comments
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Comments

Wed July 29, 2020 04:44 AM

Thanks @Morag Hughson. The links on the downloads page are in the process of being update​d. They should be pointing to 9.2 soon.

Tue July 28, 2020 11:49 PM

In your section "Can I get a copy of IBM MQ for development purposes?", if you follow the link to the "IBM MQ download page" you will end up with a copy of 915, not 920. Thankfully you have linked to 920 in the subsequent platform links, but I think the "IBM MQ download page" will need a correction.