IBM MQ for z/OS Service Provider for z/OS Connect - overview

An overview of IBM® MQ for z/OS® Service Provider for z/OS Connect, explaining the principles used and the verbs the service provider uses.

Important: z/OS Connect EE version 3.0.21.0 and later, ships an enhanced version of the MQ Service Provider which supports service archive files. You should migrate to that version of z/OS Connect EE and use the built-in MQ Service Provider, instead of using the service provider shipped with the IBM MQ for z/OS product.

In the z/OS Connect EE information in IBM Documentation, quick start scenarios for the MQ Service Provider in z/OS Connect EE are provided under Quick start scenarios, and detailed reference information is provided under Using the IBM MQ service provider.

The MQ Service Provider supports two versions of z/OS Connect:

IBM z/OS Connect Version 1 (z/OS Connect V1)

This is a component of WebSphere® Liberty Profile (WLP) on z/OS, available at no extra cost, which exposes z/OS assets as a REST interface and allows remote applications, such as those running on a mobile device, to send them data formatted using JSON.

For more information, see IBM z/OS Connect overview.

Important:

The MQ Service Provider for IBM z/OS Connect V1 requires the IBM WebSphere MQ 7.5 resource adapter. This has an end-of-service date of 30th April 2018.
After this point, the MQ Service Provider will not be supported with IBM z/OS Connect V1 and you should use IBM z/OS Connect EE instead.

For this reason, IBM z/OS Connect V1 is better placed for development and proof of concept purposes, rather than in production environments.
The MQ Service Provider only supports the z/OS Connect V1 code that is shipped in WLP 8.5.5.9 and later.

IBM z/OS Connect Enterprise Edition (z/OS Connect EE)

This is a separate, chargeable, product, based on WLP, which provides all of the function in IBM z/OS Connect V1, as well as a number of enhancements including tooling for generating RESTful APIs - the API Editor, and integration with IBM API Connect.

For more information, see IBM z/OS Connect EE.

Important: The MQ Service Provider only supports z/OS Connect EE V2.0.3.0 (APAR PI66869) or later.

The MQ Service Provider provides the same function, regardless of which version of z/OS Connect is used. All of the capabilities of z/OS Connect EE, such as the API Editor, are supported with the MQ Service Provider.

Throughout the documentation, the term z/OS Connect is used to refer to both versions, unless there is a need to refer to a specific version, in which case, one of the names defined in the preceding text is used.

The z/OS assets exposed by z/OS Connect do not need to understand REST or JSON, as z/OS Connect maps REST invocations to local calls, and also provides transformations to convert between JSON and local data structures, such as COBOL copy books.

The MQ Service Provider is available as a separate WLP feature that can be installed into the relevant z/OS Connect installation. Note that the majority of the work in setting up the MQ Service Provider is configuration based, so that the REST application does not need to be aware of IBM MQ. However, access to items such as MQMD fields is provided for more advanced applications.

The MQ Service Provider exposes IBM MQ queues and topics as Services.

Supported versions of IBM MQ

The MQ Service Provider is supported with IBM MQ for z/OS 8.0 and later.

Versions earlier than IBM MQ 9.0.1 will not ship with the MQ Service Provider. Instead, see Obtaining the MQ Service Provider for information on how you can obtain the MQ Service Provider.

The documentation described in the z/OS Connect sections of IBM Documentation apply equally to all supported versions of IBM MQ.

Other considerations

The MQ Service Provider uses an:

HTTP GET for a non-destructive MQGET call
HTTP DELETE for a destructive MQGET call
HTTP POST for an MQPUT call

These are the same verbs used by the IBM MQ Bridge for HTTP. Similarly, the MQ Service Provider uses HTTP headers as a way of specifying various things, such as MQMD values.

For more information on the HTTP calls, see Verbs the MQ Service Provider supports

Note that the only data that is represented as JSON data is the payload of the message. This means that applications do not unnecessarily get exposed to IBM MQ concepts if all they need is the message data.

The MQ Service Provider makes use of the IBM MQ resource adapter support in WLP and, therefore, is based on JMS.