Recording data

Record data that is flowing through a message flow.

Before you begin

Ensure that the message flow for which you want to record data has been deployed. For more information, see Deployment rules and guidelines.

About this task

You can record data to a database for audit purposes, or to help with problem determination. To record data, you must identify the source of the data that you want to record and the place that you want to record it to. The steps that you take to record data are shown in the following diagram:

The diagram is described in the surrounding text.

Procedure

Complete the following tasks to set up data recording. The sequence of these tasks is important. If they are not completed exactly as shown, BIP message BIP2194 is generated on startup.

Create and configure your database, and define an ODBC definition for the data source name (DSN). Specify an ID and password for your integration node to use when connecting to the database. See Creating and configuring a database for recording data.
Configure the record and replay store for your integration server. See Configuring data recording.

Your record and replay topology can include more than one independent integration server or integration node. See Using multiple integration nodes and multiple independent integration servers for record and replay.
Specify a publish/subscribe topic that identifies the source of the data that you want to record, by modifying the topic property of your record and replay source in the server.conf.yaml file for the integration server. For more information, see Configuring data recording.
Test that your subscription to the topic was successful by retrieving the subscriptions on the queue manager for your integration server.
Use the runmqsc command to check the subscription. Complete the following steps:
1. At a command prompt, type runmqsc qmName, where qmName is your queue manager name.
2. To display all the queue manager subscriptions, type dis sub(*)
3. Check that the topic name is returned in the list of subscription topics, for example SUB(integrationServerName:myTopic)
4. To exit the runmqsc environment, type end
To generate the data that you want to record, configure monitoring on your message flows. See Configuring monitoring for recording.

What to do next

You can enable security for recording data by following the instructions in Enabling security for record and replay.
After you have recorded data, you can view it. For more information, see Viewing recorded data.
You might want to turn off recording for a particular integration server temporarily (for performance reasons, for example). For more information, see Disabling and enabling Recording.
For more information about tuning recording, See Tuning data recording.
If you use different integration nodes or independent integration servers for deploying your message flows and for recording data from those message flows to a database, then you must configure a publish/subscribe relationship between the integration nodes or integration servers . For more information, see Using multiple integration nodes and multiple independent integration servers for record and replay.