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| jon |
 Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 12:08 am Post subject: Message Broker - a good option? |
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Apprentice
Joined: 17 May 2009
Posts: 32
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Hello everyone,
I am a middleware professional with exp in MQ/Message Broker.
I already have websphere MQ certification and I am planning to add "message broker certification" in my portfolio.
I want to know which one is the good option -
1. Message Broker development
2. Message Broker administration
Any info regarding the above would really help me.
Thanks!
Last edited by jon on Tue Oct 06, 2009 9:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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| Gaya3 |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:31 am Post subject: |
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Jedi
Joined: 12 Sep 2006
Posts: 2493
Location: Boston, US
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i suggest you always good 
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Regards
Gayathri
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Do Something Before you Die |
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| shashivarungupta |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:35 am Post subject: |
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Grand Master
Joined: 24 Feb 2009
Posts: 1343
Location: Floating in space on a round rock.
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It all depends on your comfort level.
If you think that you can manage the issues/updates related work then better go with administration.
Or if you think that you can learn and implement the things as a development part of the projects then better go for first one.
you are right that this IBM products are expensive and not all the companies are using this as a middleware product...lots other are there in the market.
But when Demand is high and Supply is less.. then there is your value in the market. Hope you got what I meant to say.
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*Life will beat you down, you need to decide to fight back or leave it. |
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| hopsala |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:09 am Post subject: |
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Guardian
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 960
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In my experience, there are plenty of big sites who have bought or are going to buy WMB; and as shashivarungupta said, demand is much higher than the current supply. WMB people are in very high demand, and are usually paid handsomely.
I would go with the WMB developer option. The truth is that "WMB adminsitration" is not really a field in itself, as WMB does not require or even allow the same administrative complexitiy as MQ does. In most sites, the so-called WMB administrators are really just PC sysadmins who perform the installation (next, next, next..) and nothing more.
In addition, most WMB teams are small and autonomous. These are broker developers, who fiddle with administration from time to time. You can find work being just a broker dev, but you can't find work being a broker admin and nothing but. |
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| Sam Uppu |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 10:40 am Post subject: |
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Yatiri
Joined: 11 Nov 2008
Posts: 610
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You also have to consider that in most of the sites the WMB development is sent to offshore outside of US(as the economy is not that good). As they can develop the flows/ sets and zip them and send across. The admin who is onsite is able to unzip it and deploy.
I would say you should know both Admin as well as development(atleast can debug and troubleshoot the flows) as the companies are looking for a multi skilled worker.
Thanks. |
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| jon |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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Apprentice
Joined: 17 May 2009
Posts: 32
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Hi All,
Thanks for your replies.
| Quote: |
" is not really a field in itself, as WMB does not require or even allow the same administrative complexitiy as MQ does. In most sites, the so-called WMB administrators are really just PC sysadmins who perform the installation (next, next, next..) and nothing more. |
Hopsala, I agree with you on this point that WMB admin is not complex and again generally WMB is installed at only 1 centralized server with lot of MQ server connecting to it so it limits the scope of WMB admin work.
thanks again to everybody. |
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| PeterPotkay |
| Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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Poobah
Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 7722
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| jon wrote: |
| Hopsala, I agree with you on this point that WMB admin is not complex.... |
Go ahead and set up a Broker with a local database in a hardware cluster using SSL with a ton of message flows accessing Oracle, SQL Server and DB2 DBs on remote servers with some File Input flows reading from remote FTP servers. Don't forget to consider how many Execution Groups you should run and where your Config Manager should run. Make sure it scales as volume grows and don't forget a DR plan. Since you can't rollback an upgrade to WMB insure every upgrade you do is successful.
Simple.
_________________
Peter Potkay
Keep Calm and MQ On |
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| hopsala |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:18 am Post subject: |
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Guardian
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 960
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| PeterPotkay wrote: |
| jon wrote: |
| Hopsala, I agree with you on this point that WMB admin is not complex.... |
Go ahead and set up a Broker with a local database in a hardware cluster using SSL with a ton of message flows accessing Oracle, SQL Server and DB2 DBs on remote servers with some File Input flows reading from remote FTP servers. Don't forget to consider how many Execution Groups you should run and where your Config Manager should run. Make sure it scales as volume grows and don't forget a DR plan. Since you can't rollback an upgrade to WMB insure every upgrade you do is successful.
Simple. |
I agree with Peter here. I never said that WMB administration is simple (re-read my post and you'll see); what I said was that it isn't as complex as WMQ, and that it is not considered a profession in itself in the industry. The simple fact is that WMB administration is almost always handled by the WMB team, whose main role is WMB programming. You can't apply for a job with "WMB admin" and without "WMB prog" on your resume. Also, I don't think it's possible to be a good WMB admin without being a solid WMB programmer, but you can definitely be an excellent WMB programmer with very little or no WMB admin knowledge.
But note that most of the complexity Peter described isn't about WMB directly, but has to do with peripheral issues (HACMP, DBs, SSL certs etc). The product in itself is not very customizable, at least no where near WMQ, and I dare anyone to say otherwise. 
Oh, and Peter - how do you ensure that "it scales"? Personally I have no idea. Sounds to me like a programming design issue.
It's curious that the WMQ market works the other way around - MQ Programming is not a profession in itself (usually one is simply a "programmer", with additional MQ skills), whereas MQ administration is. And in order to be a good MQ admin, you have to be a good MQ programmer. |
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| exerk |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:31 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Posts: 6339
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| hopsala wrote: |
| ... And in order to be a good MQ admin, you have to be a good MQ programmer. |
I couldn't programme my way out of a wet paper bag, so does that make me just a mediocre MQ admin, or a bad one? 
I think it's fairer to say that a good MQ admin knows what will cause it all to break, and can guide or assist a developer when necessary. I've traced enough badly coded calls to have learned what not to do, but I can't cut code - unless you want infinite loops, in which case I'm the worlds leading expert!
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It's puzzling, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before...and it's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. |
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| hopsala |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:46 am Post subject: |
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Guardian
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 960
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| exerk wrote: |
| I couldn't programme my way out of a wet paper bag, so does that make me just a mediocre MQ admin, or a bad one? |
I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole
I don't think that you have to be a good programmer, or even an experienced one, just to have a solid knowledge of MQI/JMS, its common gotchas, effects on routing, clustering etc etc.
exerk, consider yourself vindicated. |
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| exerk |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:18 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Posts: 6339
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I talk a good MQ solution, but still I walk in the shadows of venerated masters 
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It's puzzling, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before...and it's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. |
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| PeterPotkay |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:22 am Post subject: |
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Poobah
Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 7722
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Along with that support model (WMB developer is also the admin), here we have my team be the MQ and WMB admins, while another team does the WMB coding.
For the scaling question, I think the WMB admin (with input from the developers) would be deciding if we need more CPUs / memory, more Brokers, more execution groups, more instances, code changes, configuration changes, etc.
_________________
Peter Potkay
Keep Calm and MQ On |
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| Vitor |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 7:28 am Post subject: |
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Grand High Poobah
Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 26093
Location: Texas, USA
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| exerk wrote: |
| I couldn't programme my way out of a wet paper bag, so does that make me just a mediocre MQ admin, or a bad one? |
I have a number of potential responses, but in a rare burst of self control have declined to use any of them.
A good WMQ admin at least understands how applications interact with the infrastructure, and how to leverage it.
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Honesty is the best policy.
Insanity is the best defence. |
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| Sam Uppu |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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Yatiri
Joined: 11 Nov 2008
Posts: 610
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If you restrict yourself to one particular type of job(either MB admin or developer), the chances of getting a job is less.
In this type of economy there is a very rare to find a job in your favourite field. |
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| hopsala |
| Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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Guardian
Joined: 24 Sep 2004
Posts: 960
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| PeterPotkay wrote: |
Along with that support model (WMB developer is also the admin), here we have my team be the MQ and WMB admins, while another team does the WMB coding.
For the scaling question, I think the WMB admin (with input from the developers) would be deciding if we need more CPUs / memory, more Brokers, more execution groups, more instances, code changes, configuration changes, etc. |
Now I'm curious - how many people are at the WMB admin team? What is it that they do all day?
Most of what you said I don't think qualifies as WMB knowledge. More CPUs/memory, machines, or brokers has to do with hardware allocations and general system management. Code changes and other decisions such as whether the code can work in more than one instance can only be done by the developers, and the admins can offer little additional input. The only think that remains is "configuration changes", which is a very small set of variations that the product allows, such as JDBC two-phase commit, configurable services, and traces.
Aren't we really talking about PC admins with only a little bit of WMB knowledge? I mean, WMB dev is a full-time job, but I have never seen a "WMB admin" who invests more than 10% of his day on average on WMB servers; usually they have at least ten more technology servers to support, and so have little time to actually get to know the product.
Which brings me to what I said before - Do you think it's possible to write "WMB admin" on one's resume, and nothing but, and get away with it? |
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