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IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

  • 1.  IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Tue July 28, 2020 01:46 AM
    HI,

    We are looking at our queuing solution and we move from our MQ Appliances to the AWS cloud.

    Like I understand IBM is not offering a high available solution where data is synchronous replicated: Send message, copy the message to storage of the other MQ system(in an other AWS data center or availability zone),  do a commit and inform the MQ client operation is done. That would be the best solution for the cloud.

    I read about the IBM MQ Cloud solution here.
    We use a connectionlist on our MQ clients

    OK what is the guaranteed uptime of MQ in the cloud, and what is the availability of the data when a disaster happens ?

    Say for example a AWS datacenter Frankfurt crashes, I can use the other queuemanager in AWS Londen, but what about the data which is on the crashed datacenter(server or what ever) in queuemanager in Frankfurt ?
    After restore can I get my messages back or are the lost ?
    what is the procedure when a crash happens ?
    how much time a restore takes and how are the messages restored, are they automatically pushed back to the queue where they lived at the moment of the crash ?
    How much time my messages are not available ? 
    IBM is not very clear about this in the docs.

    This post is related to:

    https://community.ibm.com/community/user/imwuc/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=379&MessageKey=8251d8d8-ef6c-40f1-95cc-c0bf26e3ed5c&CommunityKey=183ec850-4947-49c8-9a2e-8e7c7fc46c64&tab=digestviewer&ReturnUrl=%2fcommunity%2fuser%2fimwuc%2fcommunities%2fcommunity-home%2fdigestviewer%3fcommunitykey%3d183ec850-4947-49c8-9a2e-8e7c7fc46c64%26tab%3ddigestviewer

    Kind regards,




    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Wed July 29, 2020 01:46 AM
    Hi,
    Yesterday I joined the what's new presentation IBM MQ v9.2  from @John Clifton and @David Ware  which was a nice a short but interesting presentation.

    David John,

    If I understand you right then you replied yesterday on a question from me and you say IBM is not supporting a High Available configuration in IBM Cloud as a service where storage is duplicated like we have on our HA configuration with the MQ Appliance were storage is replicated before commit, like mentioned in this ticket.

    But you also informed me yesterday about the existence of a MQ System on AWS. I looked at the docu here  aws-ibm-mq
    And I see that this is based on AWS EFS, so EFS is replicated storage over multiple availability zones in one datacenter for example Frankfurt.

    Can you tell me anything about the performance when doing synchronous writes ?

    Because we tried a AmazonMQ service from AWS which is based on ActiveMQ and the performance was 5 times slower as our IBM Appliance MQ for large messages,  Amazon guys told us that this was caused by EFS.
    I put a question on stackoverflow and details of the test we did are here stack overflow.
    So if I have the same problem with IBM on AWS for replicated storage then its not acceptable.

    Hope to hear from you
    Kind regards
    Bernard





    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Wed July 29, 2020 05:10 AM
    Hi Bernard,

    The managed MQ service provided by IBM does provide high availability within a single AZ but does not provide cross-AZ data replication and fail over.

    If multi-AZ HA is required, and this is in AWS, then you have a few options:

    Using EFS as the storage layer for MQ. We have validated that it provides the correct behavior for MQ's HA needs, although we have identified a scaling limitation which may or may not impact you, depending on how you use MQ (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-mq-considerations-efs-aws). We have not looked specifically at performance, so you may want to run your own tests to see if these results are closer to your MQ Appliance than the ActiveMQ solution you've tried.

    Using MQ Advance's RDQM (Replicated Data Queue Manager) capability to perform the data replication and fail over. This can be deployed as a set of RHEL virtual machines within AWS (https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-mq-considerations-efs-aws). As MQ is providing the replication and fail over then it is your choice as to where you deploy the VMs, so these can be across multiple availability zones or even regions. Obviously there is a performance impact when synchronously replicating data across distances so this needs to be considered, but RDQM provides a number of topologies to support both synchronous and asynchronous replication.

    Deploying your own software defined storage layer. For example running MQ in containers within OpenShift and using OpenShift Container Storage to provide the data replication. More details on MQ HA in containers - https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSFKSJ_9.1.0/com.ibm.mq.ctr.doc/ha_for_ctr.htm.

    RDQM is very close to the MQ Appliance's model of HA, so if you're happy with that solution on-prem you may want to look at RDQM in AWS.

    ------------------------------
    David Ware
    STSM, IBM MQ Chief Architect
    Hursley, UK
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Wed July 29, 2020 12:03 PM
    HI David,
    Thanks for your answer and detailed explanation, I think I have some homework to do. I have read the links about RDQM and that seems an very interesting option in AWS.
    Kind regards

    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Fri July 31, 2020 05:13 PM
    Hi @David Ware,

    I tried to install MQ9.2 with RDQM  first on some local Linux servers, but it is not working, i am in the rpm mess....trying to download all the dependencys.
    I used this manual couldn't find anything else and it is for MQ 9.0:
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSFKSJ_9.0.0/com.ibm.mq.ins.doc/q130560_.htm
    Its really bad documented.
    I think there must be an easy way to install MQ 9.2 with RDQM, do you have a link for me for MQ 9.2​ on RedHat 8 ?
    Thanks
    Kind regards

    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Fri July 31, 2020 10:58 PM
    Be aware that all the dependencies are part of the MQ install download. You do not, and should not, get the dependencies from somewhere else.

    ------------------------------
    Morag Hughson
    MQ Technical Education Specialist
    MQGem Software Limited
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Sat August 01, 2020 06:18 AM
    Hi Morag,
    Thanks, I have found the 9.2.0.0 manual, its not working either.
    Maybe its because I am using centos 8 instead of Redhat 8, I don't know, anytway I quit with it, it takes to much time to install this just for a testing and trail environment to see if things works and are a good fit for us.

    Kind regards

    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Sat August 01, 2020 06:30 AM
    Edited by Morag Hughson Sat August 01, 2020 06:33 AM

    I have tried it perfectly successfully using CentOS. This was CentOS 7 not 8 and an earlier version of MQ than V9.2.

    The trick is to remove all traces of pacemaker and DRDB that you might have installed from elsewhere before you realised that you should not get them from elsewhere (I did the same thing the first time before I read the instructions too!) and then follow the instructions to install them from the MQ install media. It is very straightforward.

    Cheers,
    Morag



    ------------------------------
    Morag Hughson
    MQ Technical Education Specialist
    MQGem Software Limited
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Sat August 01, 2020 07:40 AM
    Edited by Bernard Pittens Sun August 02, 2020 02:48 PM
    Hi Morag,
    Thanks, its working on centos8 :-)
    The problem was that  the first line of the IBM-MQ.repo  in the install dir. is:

    @(#) MQMBID sn=p920-L200709 su=_he1cUsHdEeqhru3bNhtEjw pn=install/unix/linux_2/IBM-MQ-repo.txt

    I removed that line and then the installation works without a problem. Don't know what that line does but I think it is not necessary.

    System works really great, local  at least within VMWare on 3 Linux Centos 8 nodes.
    Also the virtual IP works great, its a pitty that it is not support different subnets. Because in AWS if you want multi AZ  you can't use virtual IP.

    Ok now I have to move to Amazon AWS for the next test.

    Kind regards

    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Mon August 03, 2020 05:49 AM
    Hi Bernard,

    The MQMBID line in the yum repo file that you identified contains information to assist IBM Support, but it should be commented out so that it does not invalidate the syntax of the file. We will correct this issue for the future.

    You stated that you have deployed RDQM on CentOS 8, but unfortunately this is not a supported platform. RDQM is only supported on RHEL 7 and RHEL 8.

    For reference, the MQ 9.2 installation instructions for RDQM are available at https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSFKSJ_9.2.0/com.ibm.mq.ins.doc/q130560_.htm

    If you have any comments about how we might improve this documentation then that would be appreciated.

    Kind regards,
    Jamie

    ------------------------------
    Jamie Squibb
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: IBM MQ on cloud: High Availability

    Posted Mon August 03, 2020 01:12 PM
    Edited by Bernard Pittens Tue August 04, 2020 02:05 AM
    Hi Jamie,

    Yes I know about the RH support versions, but  Centos is exactly the same and the kernell version matches also according IBM specs. see - kernells
    Anyway in Centos 8 VMWare it works, but when  I export the VM and then import the OVA file in Amazon as an AMI then after configuration the peacemaker config seems tor run fine(drqmadm -c ) .  But it fails at the creation of the Queuemanger(crtmqm -sx -lp 32 -ls 32 -fs 9G QMAN_BP) with an error to the modprobe drbd.
    If I do a   modprobe drbd   then it says that if Fails to find the module drbd.
    Ok that kind of errors are to complicated, because there can be many many reasons. 
    All requirements(password less SSH, separate partition drbdpool, firewalls, Selinux) are met but yes its an imported VM image.

    Maybe I give it another try some later, for now I quit with this because it takes to much time. The import of the VM failed, maybe I can give it a start from scratch from a empty AWS delivered AMI.

    But then I need some more info from IBM, I have some questions:

    1. I have used EBS storage in AWS. Do I need some kind of storage in AWS, EBS or EFS ?  Maybe some other info I need ?  Storage types for example ?
    2. Do you have the AWS AMI (Amazon Machine Interface) ID which I can use as a template for creating an EC2 instance?
    3. I use LVM, I have created an empty Logical volume group(drbdpool). My own VM in VMWare uses  /dev/sda (old legacy block storage) ,  in AWS the storage is  /dev/xvda  which is native storage.  Can this be a problem ?  Do I need to change something in this ?
    4. Any other detail for installation in AWS I need to know ?

    Thanks

    ------------------------------
    Bernard Pittens
    Integration Engeneer
    Sligro Foodgroup B.V.
    Veghel
    ------------------------------