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  • 1.  MQ/MFT behind F5 load balancer

    Posted Wed February 26, 2020 09:15 AM
      |   view attached
    If you have 2 linux systems (or any other o/s) sitting behind an F5 load balancer, is it possible to have an MQ/MFT agent installed on both systems and active, so that transfers to that agent get transferred and if system 1 is down, that transfers will route to system 2?

    I'm attaching a doc, with a crude diagram, to show what they are wanting.  The F5 is for inbound traffic, however they want essentially an active/active MQ/MFT agent, where the agent is started on both linux systems.

    Is there a way to define, in the queue manager a, for lack of a better word, a mq/mft agent cluster, without the linux systems being in a actual cluster?

    Thanks,
    Peter

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    Peter Vander Woude
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    Attachment(s)

    docx
    mft behind f5.docx   22 KB 1 version


  • 2.  RE: MQ/MFT behind F5 load balancer

    Posted Thu February 27, 2020 02:57 AM
    Hi,
    we have been using this deployment guide with our F5 configurations. Hope it helps.

    https://www.f5.com/services/resources/deployment-guides/ibm-websphere-mq-big-ip-v111-ltm

    --Hermanni

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    Hermanni Pernaa
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: MQ/MFT behind F5 load balancer

    Posted Thu February 27, 2020 09:19 AM
    Hermanni,

    Thank-you for that link.  However, with MQ/MFT (Managed File transfer), the agent is running on the linux server and it opens the connection to the MQ Queue manager, and keeps the connection open.  Thus file transfers done by another MQ/MFT (previously known as MQ/FTE) agent, go through the queue manager and then down the already open connection to the the agent on the linux server.  There is no "new" port opening that the F5 can use to balance data flow.

    That differs from what the link you provided to me, as in that diagram, you have remote systems connecting to an MQ Broker environment (if I recall correctly), and those connections can be load balanced.

    Peter

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    Peter Vander Woude
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: MQ/MFT behind F5 load balancer

    Posted Fri February 28, 2020 06:28 AM
    Ok, it seems that I didn't really understand the scenario you were aiming for... It seems like an interesting setup, I have never heard an agent cluster without any OS level clustering support. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

    I'm a bit sceptical about the possibility to achieve something like this through F5. Even with the simpler scenario presented in the F5 document we have noticed that come clients have real difficulties to reconnect to the queue manager after a failover because of their existing connection handles. Not really helpful, but just some thoughts that came into my mind.

    --Hermanni

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    Hermanni Pernaa
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    Original Message


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