[z/OS][MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022][MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]

What's new in IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.0 - base and Advanced VUE entitlement

IBM® MQ 9.3.0 delivers a number of new features and enhancements that are available with base and IBM MQ Advanced for z/OS® Value Unit Edition (VUE) entitlement.

Streaming queues
The following capabilities are new for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
Administration
The following capabilities first appeared in IBM MQ 9.2.x Continuous Delivery releases and are new for Long Term Support at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
The following capabilities are new for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
Security
The following capabilities first appeared in IBM MQ 9.2.x Continuous Delivery releases and are new for Long Term Support at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
The following capabilities are new for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
Application development
The following capabilities first appeared in IBM MQ 9.2.x Continuous Delivery releases and are new for Long Term Support at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
The following capabilities are new for Long Term Support and Continuous Delivery at IBM MQ 9.3.0:
The following capabilities are new for Long Term Support at IBM MQ 9.3.0:

Streaming queues

[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022][MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]Streaming queues to realize additional value from data already flowing through IBM MQ
IBM MQ 9.3.0 adds the streaming queues feature, which allows you to configure a queue to put a near-identical copy of every message to a second queue. Streaming queues can be useful in certain scenarios, where you need to create a copy of your messages. For example:
  • Performing analysis on the data going through the system.
  • Storing messages for recovery at a later time.
  • Capturing a set of messages to use in development and test systems.
  • Consuming IBM MQ event messages from the system event queues, and sending additional copies to other queues or topics.
For more information, see Streaming queues.

Administration

[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]New queue managers 64-bit RBA capable by default
IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.0 simplifies the creation of new queue managers by making them use a 64 bit log RBA, and being capable of having up to 310 active logs, by default. This means that you no longer have to run the CSQJUCNV utility on new queue managers to use these capabilities. For more information, see CSQJUCNV and Larger log Relative Byte Address.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2021]Changes to statistics collection intervals
IBM MQ for z/OS can capture statistics and accounting data in SMF records at regular intervals. Statistics data is cheap to capture and small in volume. Accounting data is more expensive to capture, and can be large in volume. From IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.0 you have the ability to define separate intervals for the collection of statistics and accounting data allowing more frequent capturing of statistics data without also having to capture large volumes of accounting data.
IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.0 also adds the ability to collect SMF records at more precise intervals. You can define the statistics and accounting intervals so that they use a value for both minutes and seconds. This not only allows for more precise data collection, but also more frequent collection, as you can select an interval of less than one minute. This can be particularly important when analyzing performance problems.
For more information, see Using System Management Facility and Using CSQ6SYSP.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]CSQUDSPM utility supports upper case and lower case parameters
From IBM MQ for z/OS 9.3.0, the CSQUDSPM utility now supports upper case and lower case parameters. This means batch jobs using this utility can be written with CAPS ON, which is a common configuration. This change also means those using the utility in Unix System Services have the choice to use upper or lower case flags, to match their preference. For more information, see Display queue manager information utility (CSQUDSPM).
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]IBM MQ Console Application quick start
Enhancements to the IBM MQ Console can help new users to get started more easily than ever before, following simple steps to create a messaging configuration with an application. For more information, see Quick tour of the IBM MQ Console.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]Remote queue manager support for the IBM MQ Console
IBM MQ 9.3.0 adds support for managing remote queue managers in the IBM MQ Console. Adding remote queue managers to the IBM MQ Console enables you to administer all your queue managers in a single IBM MQ Console instance. The remote queue managers can be queue managers that are running in a different installation on the same system as the IBM MQ Console, or queue managers that are running on a different system. For more information, see Adding a remote queue manager to the IBM MQ Console.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]Configurable IBM MQ Console message browsing controls
At IBM MQ 9.3.0, general updates have been made to improve the usability of the IBM MQ Console for a better user experience. These include the capability to download and view complete message contents from the IBM MQ Console, enhancing the prior previewing capability. You can configure these capabilities with three new parameters, mqConsoleMaxMsgCharsToDisplay, mqConsoleMaxMsgRequestSize and mqConsoleMaxMsgsPerRequest, that have been added to the setmqweb command. For more information, see setmqweb (set mqweb server configuration).
[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022][MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]Enhancements to SMF statistics
IBM MQ 9.3.0 adds the collection of queue statistics to the existing SMF information available to your enterprise. The new queue statistics data provides relevant data for each queue without the burden of collecting accounting information, or having to write an application to issue the DISPLAY QSTATUS command. This allows you to better monitor the performance of your queues over time, using your existing SMF tools.

For more information, see Queue data records.

Security

AT-TLS best practices for IBM MQ for z/OS
Application Transparent Transport Layer Security (AT-TLS) can make it simpler to enable TLS on channels. It is designed to create a secure session on behalf of an application and provide encryption and decryption of data based on policy statements rather than requiring TLS to be implemented by every application that requires a secure connection. For more information, see Use of AT-TLS with IBM MQ for z/OS.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jul 2022]More flexible configuration for SNI support
The Server Name Indication (SNI) extension of TLS enables a client to indicate the hostname to which it is attempting to connect at the start of the handshaking process. From IBM MQ 9.3.0, an improvement has been made to allow the SNI to store either the IBM MQ channel name or the hostname.
The OutboundSNI property of the TransportSecurity stanza allows you to select whether the SNI should be set to the target IBM MQ channel name to the remote system when initiating a TLS connection, or to the hostname. For more information about the OutboundSNI property, see The QMINI data set.
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]Support for multiple queue manager certificates in MQIPT
From IBM MQ 9.3.0, per-channel certificates can be used on a queue manager for TLS connections received from IBM MQ Internet Pass-Thru (MQIPT), where the MQIPT route is configured as a TLS client.
IBM MQ supports the use of multiple certificates on the same queue manager, using a per-channel certificate label, specified using the CERTLABL attribute on the channel definition. Inbound channels to the queue manager rely on detecting the channel name using TLS Server Name Indication (SNI), in order for the queue manager to present the correct certificate. From IBM MQ 9.3.0, MQIPT can be configured to allow multiple certificates to be used by the destination queue manager by either setting the SNI to the channel name, or passing through the SNI received on the inbound connection to the route.
For more information about multiple certificate support and MQIPT, see IBM MQ multiple certificate support with MQIPT.
User data traced by MQIPT can be configured
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022][MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]From IBM MQ 9.3.0, the amount of user data in network transmissions received and sent by MQIPT routes that is traced can be configured using the TraceUserData property. If this property is not specified, only the first 64 bytes of data in network transmissions is traced.

Application development

[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022]REST Messaging API: greater access to message properties when sending and receiving messages using the REST API
The following new features provide increased access to message properties when sending or receiving messages by using the REST API:
  • A new REST API V3 has been introduced. New features are available by using the v3 version of the resource URL.
  • Support for a message priority request header has been added.
  • Application-specific correlation IDs can now be used (bringing the use of Correlation and Message IDs more in line with JMS).
  • Support for setting and reading multiple user-defined message properties has been added.
Details of the new features are available in the following topics:
[MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022][MQ 9.3.0 Jun 2022][Jakarta Messaging 3.0]Support for Jakarta Messaging 3.0
The JMS specification defines a set of named Java interfaces that software conforming to the specification must implement. From IBM MQ 9.3.0, Jakarta Messaging 3.0 is supported. This extends the set of environments in which IBM MQ can be used.
IBM MQ 9.2 and earlier support JMS 2.0, which also supports the functionality defined in JMS 1.0 and JMS 1.1. IBM MQ 9.3.0 continues to support JMS 2.0 for existing applications, and adds support for Jakarta Messaging 3.0 for new development:
  • A new -j option is added to the setmqenv and crtmqenv commands. You can use this option to specify whether you require an environment suitable to run JMS 2.0 or Jakarta Messaging 3.0 applications.
  • Two new sample scripts, setjms30env and setjms30env_64, are provided. You can use them to set the environment for Jakarta Messaging 3.0 applications. For more information, see Setting environment variables for IBM MQ classes for JMS/Jakarta Messaging.
  • An additional set of Java classes are provided. They implement the interfaces specified in Jakarta Messaging 3.0. These classes have different names from the existing implementation classes and are packaged into new JAR and RAR files. For the Javadoc information for these classes, see IBM MQ classes for JMS 3.0.
    Note: For Jakarta Messaging 3.0, control of the JMS specification moves from Oracle to the Java Community Process. However, Oracle retains control of the "javax" name, which is used in other Java technologies that have not moved to the Java Community Process. So, while Jakarta Messaging 3.0 is functionally equivalent to JMS 2.0 there are some differences in naming:
    • The official name for Jakarta Messaging 3.0 is Jakarta Messaging rather than Java Message Service.
    • The package and constant names are prefixed with jakarta rather than javax. For example, in JMS 2.0 the initial connection to a messaging provider is a javax.jms.Connection object, and in Jakarta Messaging 3.0 it is a jakarta.jms.Connection object.
For more information, see Using IBM MQ classes for JMS/Jakarta Messaging.
[Long Term Support]Simplified Java application technologies
With APAR PH56722, IBM MQ classes for JMS and IBM MQ classes for Java applications running in a batch environment are allowed to use client connectivity to any z/OS queue manager, regardless of the PID that the queue manager is running under.
See Java client connectivity to batch applications running on z/OS and JMS/Jakarta Messaging client connectivity to batch applications running on z/OS for more information.