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| zpat |
 Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2003 1:21 am Post subject: WBIMB v.5 - is it production service ready? |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 19 May 2001
Posts: 5866
Location: UK
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We need to upgrade from MQSI 2.0.2 - we can go to WMQI 2.1 (which is already 2 years old) or to WBIMB v.5.
IBM have not provided a direct upgrade path from 2.0.2 to 5.0 - but aside from that, my concern is stability. We have a large production broker service on a HA/CMP cluster running AIX with MQSI 2.0.2.
Has anyone migrated a production workload to WBIMB v5? Especially on a UNIX platform? Have there been any compatibility or stability issues?
CSD02 is out now for V5 - loads of fixes - so is this a product that needs to reach CSD04 before being stable?
We are achieving superb availability on 2.0.2 (so IBM can do it!) but I am not so confident about V5 - any experiences to relate, good or bad? |
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| RatherBeGolfing |
| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 6:24 am Post subject: |
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Centurion
Joined: 12 Nov 2002
Posts: 118
Location: Syracuse, NY, USA
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We began our WMQI experience at V2.1 (actually we were using Neonet on OS/390 before that!). We applied CSD02 almost immediately, before we had much built in the environment. This year, now that we have 200+ flows in production we tried to migrate to CSD04. It was a challenge. We worked on it for many hours over a 2 month period.
The biggest issues were in the MRM area, which we use extensively in communicating to legacy apps on z/OS. However, we also had isssues with the validate checkbox on MQInput nodes. We were also quite unable to migrate from CSD02 directly to CSD04. We ended up exporting all the flows and message sets, actually uninstalling the WMQI product along with DB2 and reinstalling it, then applying CSD04, then importing and deploying the flows. Luckily we have a failover environment so we could upgrade the A box while the B box handled the production work....fun!
We also moved from DB2 V7.1 with no fixpacs! to FixPac 6 - that required us to relook at some of the configuration settings.
We won't even consider V5 until next summer or fall. Hoping to attend the MQ conference in Vegas in June to hear success/horror stories.
Larry |
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| zpat |
| Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2003 7:25 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 19 May 2001
Posts: 5866
Location: UK
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| Understand your caution - my problem is that if we migrate to WMQI 2.1 and finish the project about next April - we have only bought ourselves another eight months of IBM support (which ends 12/2004). |
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| DFletch |
| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 4:00 am Post subject: |
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Newbie
Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 1
Location: London
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I would like to echo zpat's question - interestingly, we have exactly the same timing issues - i.e. an implementation of a new corporate message hub by April 04 - trying to choose whether to go with WMQI 2.1 or WBIMB 5. We have very limited use of MQSI 1.1 and WMQI 2.1 in-house, but this is a new project. Doesn't really seem as if there is much/any production feedback out there yet? (how can there be - CSD02 is first production-ready stage and that's only been out a month...).
Is there any feedback on relative stability of v5 broker? We hear (and our own prototyping tends to confirm) that bugs in v5 are concentrated in the toolset, while the broker is largely similar to v 2.1?)
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
_________________
DFletch |
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| zpat |
| Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2003 3:44 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 19 May 2001
Posts: 5866
Location: UK
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That was certainly the message I had from IBM Hursley - that the run-time broker components were subject to much less change than the development interfaces, and therefore existing flows should keep working.
Probably a case of doing some stress testing ourselves on v5 and keeping 2.1 as "plan B". |
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| kman |
| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:10 am Post subject: |
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Partisan
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 309
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Here I am going to give you another news that you don't want to listen. I got this when I attended a class a few months ago.
You can't directly migrate your msgflow from 2.0.2 to v5. You need to step up to 2.1 first. As I said, this was a few months ago. You may want to check it's correctness.
If this statement still holds, then I suggest you talk to your IBM rep, and try to get the 'loan' 2.1 for this migration exercise.
In anycase, I would upgrade it myself, so that I will get better support when there are issues, and won't risk of running out of support.
Good luck. |
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| zpat |
| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2003 3:10 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 19 May 2001
Posts: 5866
Location: UK
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I was aware of that issue thanks. We have copies of all the WMQI releases as they are automatically shipped out by IBM.
However once we have migrated our flows through v2.1 to v5, we can then upgrade our broker platforms directly to v5 and import the flows.
That's the theory anyway! |
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| Ash |
| Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2003 5:58 am Post subject: |
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Novice
Joined: 07 Jan 2002
Posts: 17
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Guys,
You might want to confirm with your IBM rep that WMQI v2.1 really goes out of support at the end of 2004.
My understanding is that IBM will continue to support WMQI v2.1 for the next 2-3 yrs.
Ash |
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| kirani |
| Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:41 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Knight
Joined: 05 Sep 2001
Posts: 3779
Location: Torrance, CA, USA
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IBM is ending support for WMQI 2.1 in Sept 2005.
We are using WMQI 2.1 on Windows 2000 platform, and microsoft is ending support for Win2K soon (March 2005). So we are looking into upgrading our OS to 2003, but WMQI 2.1 is not supported on Win2003. I guess we have 2 options,
1) Buy extended support for Windows 2000.
2) Upgrade to WBIMB 5.0
_________________
Kiran
IBM Cert. Solution Designer & System Administrator - WBIMB V5
IBM Cert. Solutions Expert - WMQI
IBM Cert. Specialist - WMQI, MQSeries
IBM Cert. Developer - MQSeries
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| zpat |
| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 9:45 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Council
Joined: 19 May 2001
Posts: 5866
Location: UK
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We're attempting an upgrade from 2.0.2 to v5 for one of the largest MQSI applications around (we severely pushed 2.0.2 to it's limits and in some cases beyond!).
Fingers crossed.... |
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| kirani |
| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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Jedi Knight
Joined: 05 Sep 2001
Posts: 3779
Location: Torrance, CA, USA
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I've crossed my fingers too.....
I don't mind upgrading to Win2003 and WBIMB V5, but I'm not very comfortable with the timings.
I am going to set-up a test server and test all of our code first. Based on our testing/migration/performance feedback we will then decide what to do next. I think it's very risky to upgrade at the last minute.
Like most of the other people out there, I'd like to wait for 1-2 more CSD's before using V5 into Production environment.
_________________
Kiran
IBM Cert. Solution Designer & System Administrator - WBIMB V5
IBM Cert. Solutions Expert - WMQI
IBM Cert. Specialist - WMQI, MQSeries
IBM Cert. Developer - MQSeries
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| Nick Lethbridge |
| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 9:03 am Post subject: |
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Voyager
Joined: 13 Aug 2001
Posts: 88
Location: Santander, UK
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I've implemented a copy of our production system (WMQI 2.1) on a development system (WBIMB V5 with CSD02). Although some NEON problems were encountered, it was a fairly painless migration exercise.
One of my concerns is the use of Concurrent Versions System (CVS) for version control. This is an open-source version control system and I suspect that a few people here will be concerned about support.
Has anyone any views, or experience with CVS ?
Would they suggest installing CVSNT on the Windows ConfigMgr server or CVS on the Unix server (that the brokers are running on) ?
The latest version of CVSNT (2.0.31) was created last Sunday and is five versions removed from the deemed "stable" version (2.0.26) created two weeks ago. This rate of change is likely to make senior management even more jittery.......! |
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| jefflowrey |
| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 9:20 am Post subject: |
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Grand Poobah
Joined: 16 Oct 2002
Posts: 19981
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| Nick Lethbridge wrote: |
| Would they suggest installing CVSNT on the Windows ConfigMgr server or CVS on the Unix server (that the brokers are running on) ? |
Neither. I'd put it on it's own server.
_________________
I am *not* the model of the modern major general. |
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| kirani |
| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 11:56 am Post subject: |
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Jedi Knight
Joined: 05 Sep 2001
Posts: 3779
Location: Torrance, CA, USA
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I agree with Jeff.
BTW, we use ClearCase and so far it's working pretty well with V5 framework.
I am wondering from migration (to prod) perspective what files do you version control other than the ones listed here …
esql
msgflow
msgnode
bar
mxsd
mset
_________________
Kiran
IBM Cert. Solution Designer & System Administrator - WBIMB V5
IBM Cert. Solutions Expert - WMQI
IBM Cert. Specialist - WMQI, MQSeries
IBM Cert. Developer - MQSeries
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| Nick Lethbridge |
| Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:55 am Post subject: |
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Voyager
Joined: 13 Aug 2001
Posts: 88
Location: Santander, UK
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Many thanks for the feedback.
Kiran: It was helpful to know that somebody has integrated other SCM products within the WBIMB V5 framework. Clearcase would give us the opportunity to use a proprietary product, as opposed to open-source. However, we have standardised on Merant Version Manager (PVCS) within the company and so I shall also investigate their adapter offerings.
I understand that Merant Version Manager 8 supports WSAD 5.0 and Eclipse 2.0 - has anyone anyone out there proven that it can be integrated with WBIMB V5 ?
Kiran: Your list of files seems to cover it for WBIMB. In addition, we safe-store WMQ configuration files, Unix shell scripts, DB2 scripts, application source code, etc., that are associated with our BI infrastructure.
Regards,
Nick. |
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