About IBM MQ

Introductory information to help you get started with IBM MQ 9.0, including an introduction to the product and an overview of what is new and what is changed for this release.

You can use IBM MQ to enable applications to communicate at different times and in many diverse computing environments.

What is IBM MQ?

IBM MQ supports the exchange of information between applications, systems, services and files by sending and receiving message data via messaging queues. This simplifies the creation and maintenance of business applications. IBM MQ works with a broad range of computing platforms, and can be deployed across a range of different environments including on-premise, in cloud, and hybrid cloud deployments. IBM MQ supports a number of different APIs including Message Queue Interface (MQI), Java Message Service (JMS), REST, .NET, IBM MQ Light and MQTT.

IBM MQ provides:

Versatile messaging integration from mainframe to mobile that provides a single, robust messaging backbone for dynamic heterogeneous environments.
Message delivery with security-rich features that produce auditable results.
Qualities of service that provide once and once only delivery of messages to ensure messages will withstand application and system outages
High-performance message transport to deliver data with improved speed and reliability.
Highly available and scalable architectures to support an application's needs.
Administrative features that simplify messaging management and reduce time spent using complex tools.
Open standards development tools that support extensibility and business growth.

An application has a choice of programming interfaces, and programming languages to connect to IBM MQ.

IBM MQ provides these messaging and queuing capabilities across multiple modes of operation: point-to-point ; publish/subscribe ; file transfer ; telemetry.

Messaging: Programs communicate by sending each other data in messages rather than by calling each other directly.
Queuing: Messages are placed on queues, so that programs can run independently of each other, at different speeds and times, in different locations, and without having a direct connection between them.
Point-to-point: Applications send messages to a queue and receive messages from a queue. Each message is consumed by a single instance of an application. The sender must know the name of the destination, but not where it is.
Publish/subscribe: Applications subscribe to topics. When an application publishes a message on a topic, IBM MQ sends copies of the message to those subscribing applications. The publisher does not know the names of subscribers, or where they are.
File transfer: Files are transferred in messages. Managed File Transfer manages the transfer of files and the administration to set up automated transfers and log the results.
Telemetry: MQ Telemetry provides an IBM MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) server that extends your IBM MQ environment to the Internet of Things - that is, the numerous mobile, web and M2M devices and applications that sit at the edge of the network.