IBM MQ and migration to IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0

During migration, you might want to configure IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0 to take advantage of the increased flexibility that was introduced in IBM Integration Bus 10.0 for its interactions with IBM MQ.

Greater flexibility was introduced in IBM Integration Bus 10.0 in its interactions with IBM MQ; IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0 maintains this enhanced flexibility. See Interaction between IBM App Connect Enterprise and IBM MQ and IBM MQ topologies.

In IBM Integration Bus 10.0, the integration layer of your architecture must contain IBM MQ (or IBM MQ) queue managers. If you have queues that you use in integration applications, you must have an existing IBM MQ (or IBM MQ) topology in which application messages are routed to the queue manager that is specified on the integration node by using IBM MQ (or IBM MQ) channels, remote queue definitions, and distributed messaging. It might be possible to simplify your system so that your message flows interact directly with remote queue managers, which might simplify the topology that you need to manage. This simplification requires that you redesign your message flows and your topology, and is more than just a migration of your existing solution. However, you might want to include these activities as part of your migration plans.

To determine which components of your existing deployment are using capabilities that require IBM MQ or (IBM MQ) queue managers to be a part of the integration layer of your IBM App Connect Enterprise 13.0 architecture, and which components are using capabilities that can integrate with IBM MQ application queues on a remote queue manager, see Installing IBM MQ.

Depending on whether you can change your IBM MQ topology during the migration process, you have the following options for migrating integration nodes:

  • Create a new Version 13.0 integration node and associate the integration node with a new queue manager. Add the new queue manager into your IBM MQ network, migrate the applications from the original integration node, and redirect application queues as required (parallel migration).
  • Create a new Version 13.0 integration node and associate the integration node with the same queue manager as the original integration node. Migrate the applications from the original integration node, and keep the IBM MQ application endpoints and IBM MQ topology the same (parallel migration).
    If you use this option and either the original or the new integration node has message flows that contain the following message flow nodes, you must stop the original integration node before you start the new integration node. These message flow nodes use IBM MQ queues to save state, which cannot be shared between integration nodes:
    • AggregateControl
    • AggregateReply
    • AggregateRequest
    • Collector
    • Sequence
    • Resequence
    • TimeoutControl
    • TimeoutNotification
  • Create a new Version 13.0 integration node and do not associate the integration node with a queue manager. Migrate the applications from the original integration node, and configure message flows that require IBM MQ queues to connect to specified queue managers, either by directly configuring the message flow or by using a policy (parallel migration).

For more information, see IBM App Connect Enterprise migration options.