IBM MQ transformation guide

Clients who deploy IBM MQ on OpenShift® can be separated into the following scenarios:

1. Creating a new IBM MQ deployment in OpenShift for new applications.
2. Extending an IBM MQ network into OpenShift for new applications in OpenShift.
3. Moving an IBM MQ deployment into OpenShift to continue to support existing applications.

It is only for scenario 3 that you need to migrate your IBM MQ configuration. The other scenarios are considered new deployments.

This set of topics focuses on scenario 3, and describes the key steps to migrate an existing IBM MQ queue manager into a container environment using the IBM Cloud Pak for Integration certified container for IBM MQ. Because of the flexibility and extensive use of IBM MQ, there are several optional steps. Each of these includes a "Do I need to do this" section. Verifying your need should save you time during your migration.

You also need to consider what data to migrate:

1. Migrate IBM MQ with the same configuration but without any existing queued messages.
2. Migrate IBM MQ with the same configuration and existing messages.

A typical version to version migration can use either approach. In a typical IBM MQ queue manager at the point of migration there are few if any messages stored on queues, which makes option 1 appropriate for many cases. In the case of migration to a container platform it is even more common to use option 1, to reduce the complexity of the migration and allow a blue green deployment. Therefore, the instructions focus on this scenario.

The objective of this scenario is to create a queue manager in the container environment that matches the definition of the existing queue manager. This allows existing network attached applications to simply be reconfigured to point to the new queue manager, without changing any other configuration or application logic.

Throughout this migration you generate multiple configuration files to be applied to the new queue manager. To simplify the management of these files, you should create a directory and generate them into that directory.