Configuring IBM MQ (WebSphere MQ) for data enablement

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Before you configure the WebSphere® MQ agent, it is recommended to the configure IBM® MQ (WebSphere MQ) first to enable the data that you want to monitor.

About this task

Decide what type of data that you want the WebSphere MQ agent to monitor. Enable the data at the queue manager by using the MQSC commands if the data is not produced by the queue manager by default.

Remember: You must start MQSC for the target queue manager before you issue the MQSC commands. To get a list of the queue manager, issue the dspmq command from the bin directory within the IBM MQ (WebSphere MQ) installation directory. To start MQSC for a queue manager, issue the following command from the bin directory, where <qmgr_name> is the name of the queue manager that you want to configure.

runmqsc <qmgr_name>

Procedure

To see the age of the oldest message on a queue, complete the steps as documented in Enabling real-time monitoring for queues.
To monitor certain queue manager events that are not generated by the queue manager by default, complete the steps as documented in Enabling event monitoring for the queue manager.
To get the transaction tracking data, complete the steps as documented in Enabling MQI application activity trace.
To monitor a remote queue manager, ensure that the WebSphere MQ agent can collect monitoring data through a channel on the remote system. For more information, see Security settings for remote monitoring.

Enabling real-time monitoring for queues

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About this task

To see the age of the oldest message (in seconds) on a queue, you must enable the real-time monitoring for the queue.

Procedure

Use the following commands to enable real-time monitoring for the queues in your environment.

To enable real-time monitoring for all the queues whose MONQ attribute is set to QMGR, issue the following command:
```
ALTER QMGR MONQ(collection_level)
```
where collection_level specifies the collection level of monitoring data for the queues. You can set it to LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH to suit the requirements of your environment.
To enable real-time monitoring for individual queue, issue the following command:
```
ALTER QLOCAL(queue_name) MONQ(collection_level)
```
where queue_name is the name of the queue; collection_level specifies the collection level of monitoring data for the queues. You can set it to LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH to suit the requirements of your environment.

Results

The data can be displayed in the Oldest Message Age for Queue group widget after the WebSphere MQ agent is started.

Enabling event monitoring for the queue manager

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About this task

Event monitoring is one of the monitoring techniques that are available to monitor your IBM MQ network. After you enable the queue manager to emit certain types of events, event messages are put on event queues when the event occurs. So that these event messages can be monitored and displayed by the WebSphere MQ agent.

The following types of events are not monitored and displayed with the default queue manager configuration. Use the ALTER QMGR command to enable the queue manager to generate these events so that they can be displayed on the Application Performance Dashboard.

Channel events
Performance events

Procedure

Use the following commands to enable the queue manager to generate the events that you care:

To generate channel events, issue ALTER QMGR CHLEV(ENABLED).
To generate performance events, issue ALTER QMGR PERFMEV(ENABLED).

Results

The monitored events can be displayed in the Queue Manager Events group widget after the WebSphere MQ agent is started.

Enabling MQI application activity trace

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About this task

For transaction tracking data to be displayed in the middleware and topology dashboards, the MQI application activity trace must be enabled at the queue manager.

Procedure

To enable MQI application activity trace information collection, issue the following MQSC command:

ALTER QMGR ACTVTRC(ON)

Security settings for remote monitoring

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About this task

To use the WebSphere MQ agent to monitor a remote queue manager, you must make sure that the security settings of IBM MQ (WebSphere MQ) does not prevent the agent from collecting monitoring data through a channel on the remote system.

The following procedure provides an example of a simple security setting for remote monitoring. To exercise more precise control over the access granted to connecting systems at a channel level, you can use channel authentication records. For more information, refer to IBM MQ security mechanisms documentation.

Procedure

Disable channel authentication by running the following MQSC command:
```
ALTER QMGR CHLAUTH(DISABLED) CONNAUTH(' ')
```

Change the channel settings as follows, where channel_for_remote_monitor is the name of the channel used for remote monitoring.

ALTER CHANNEL(channel_for_remote_monitor) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) MCAUSER('mqm')

ALTER CHANNEL(channel_for_remote_monitor) CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) MCAUSER(MUSR_MQADMIN)

Refresh the security settings.
```
REFRESH SECURITY
```