Configuring connections between the client and server

To configure the communication links between IBM® MQ MQI clients and servers, decide on your communication protocol, define the connections at both ends of the link, start a listener, and define channels.

In IBM MQ, the logical communication links between objects are called channels. The channels used to connect IBM MQ MQI clients to servers are called MQI channels. You set up channel definitions at each end of your link so that your IBM MQ application on the IBM MQ MQI client can communicate with the queue manager on the server. For a detailed description of how to do this, see User defined channels.

Before you define your MQI channels, you must:

Decide on the form of communication that you are going to use. See Which communication type to use.
Define the connection at each end of the channel:
To define the connection, you must:
- Configure the connection.
- Record the values of the parameters that you need for the channel definitions.
- Enable the server to detect incoming network requests from your IBM MQ MQI client, by starting a listener.

Which communication type to use

Different platforms support different transmission protocols. Your choice of transmission protocol depends on your combination of IBM MQ MQI client and server platforms.

There are up to four types of transmission protocol for MQI channels depending on your client and server platforms:

LU 6.2
NetBIOS
SPX
TCP/IP

When you define your MQI channels, each channel definition must specify a transmission protocol (transport type) attribute. A server is not restricted to one protocol, so different channel definitions can specify different protocols. For IBM MQ MQI clients, it might be useful to have alternative MQI channels using different transmission protocols.

Your choice of transmission protocol might be restricted by your particular combination of IBM MQ MQI client and server platforms. The possible combinations are shown in the following table.

Table 1. Transmission protocols - combination of IBM MQ MQI client and server platforms
Transmission protocol	IBM MQ MQI client	IBM MQ server
TCP/IP	IBM i UNIX systems Windows	IBM i UNIX systems Windows z/OS®
LU 6.2	UNIX systems ¹ Windows	IBM i UNIX systems ¹ Windows z/OS
NetBIOS	Windows	Windows
SPX	Windows	Windows

Note:

Except Linux® for Power Systems

For more about setting up different types of connections, see the following links: