Distributed

New for distributed platforms

IBM® MQ 8.0 for distributed platforms delivers performance improvements for client and server connection channels, a 64-bit queue manager implementation on Windows, support for SSL in managed .NET applications, and a non-SOAP interface for transmission of native IBM MQ messages.

Performance improvements for client and server connection channels

With IBM MQ 8.0, you can get a performance improvement in your MQGET wait calls if you set the SHARECNV (sharing conversations) parameter to 1 on your SVRCONN (server connection) channels. You get this improvement with client applications that issue non-read ahead synchronous get wait calls; for example, C client MQGET wait calls. When these client applications are connected, the distributed server uses fewer threads and less memory and the throughput is increased. To benefit from the performance improvements, use SHARECNV(1) for SVRCONN channels whenever possible. For consistency with previous releases the default value for SHARECNV is still 10, so you need explicitly to set SHARECNV(1). See Tuning client and server connection channels and MQI client: Default behavior of client-connection and server-connection.

[Windows]

64-bit queue manager implementation on Windows

The IBM MQ 8.0 for Windows queue manager runs 64-bit processes and supports 32-bit and 64-bit applications. In previous versions, the queue manager on Windows consisted of 32-bit processes only, even when the queue manager was running on 64-bit Windows platforms. At IBM MQ 8.0, the queue manager on Windows platforms consists of 64-bit processes, and thus uses the 64-bit addressing capabilities of the Windows 64-bit operating system. The location of the commands, binary files, and so on, has changed in Version 8.0. All commands are now in the bin64 folder. The bin folder contains 32-bit libraries. Queue manager commands can be run from either the bin or the bin64 folder.

For more information about the concepts that you must understand before planning migration tasks for IBM MQ 8.0 for Windows, see Introduction to changes for Windows on IBM MQ 8.0.

For more information about the versions of Windows that IBM MQ 8.0 supports, see System Requirements for IBM MQ V8.0.
Important: From IBM MQ 8.0, Windows XP is no longer supported.
[Windows]

Clearing IBM MQ installation information

IBM MQ 8.0 onwards, supplies a Windows command file on the root directory of the installation media called ResetMQ.cmd that enables you to remove an entire IBM MQWindows installation, if you need to, in certain circumstances.

See Clearing installation settings for further details.

[IBMi]

Managed File Transfer: user exit samples on IBM i

With IBM MQ 8.0, on IBM i, you can use the user exit samples that are provided in MFT for the following tasks:
  • Transfer files in the QDLS file system.
  • Automatically transfer physical file members from an IBM i library in the same way as a MFT file monitor.
  • Delete an empty file object when the source file member is deleted as part of the transfer.
For more information, see Sample IBM i user exits.

Managed File Transfer: 4690 OS support

With IBM MQ 8.0, you can install IBM MQ Managed File Transfer on a device that is running 4690 OS. For more information, see Using MFT in a retail environment.

Support for SSL in managed .NET applications

IBM MQ 8.0 supports SSL/TLS in the IBM MQ.NET fully managed client. In earlier releases, this support existed in the unmanaged client only. This new offering is based on the Microsoft.NET SSLStreams kit, unlike the other IBM MQ clients, which are based on GSKit. Use of the IBM MQ.NET client in unmanaged mode is unchanged and continues to be supported. Both the unmanaged and managed modes of the IBM MQ.NET client support SSL/TLS protocols, but are based on GSKit and SSLStreams. For managed mode, due to the dependency on Microsoft.NET SSLStreams, there are a few limitations such as no programmatic option to set a CipherSpec, and enable or disable FIPS. For more information, see IBM MQ.NET managed client SSL and TLS support and SSL and TLS support for the managed .NET client.

Non-SOAP interface for transmission of native IBM MQ messages

IBM MQ 8.0 provides the capability to transmit native IBM MQ messages over the Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) channel, that is, messages without any SOAP headers over the WCF channel. This support enables WCF clients to send IBM MQ messages that can be consumed by IBM MQ clients for C, Java, JMS, and .NET. Messages can also be consumed by WCF service applications.

The existing IBM MQ channel for WCF that offers SOAP/JMS on the WCF channel has been upgraded to provide the SOAP/ IBM MQ facility. For earlier releases of IBM MQ, the WCF URI had to be a jms:\\ URI that allowed application to provide JMS object details to facilitate SOAP/JMS. However, with IBM MQ 8.0, an application can use the same client but provide a URI in wmq:\\ style that provides the SOAP/ IBM MQ style of support. This change offers SOAP (as SOAP/JMS, or SOAP/ IBM MQ, or both) and non-SOAP (native IBM MQ message) channels over the WCF. For more information, see IBM MQ custom channel for WCF endpoint URI address format.