Architecture for agentless monitoring on IBM MQ

In a traditional agent-based installation, an agent (QPEA) and its IBM MQ extensions (QPMON and QPCFG) are set up to run on each monitored IBM MQ server host. In an agentless installation, QPEA/QPMON/QPCFG can be configured to run on a separate computer and remotely administer multiple IBM MQ servers from one set of processes.

To distinguish when QPEA/QPMON/QPCFG is run in a remote agentless configuration versus an agent-based setup, the term "Agentless Services" refers to the former configuration. The Agentless Services can be run on the same platforms as the other MainView Middleware Monitor (MVMM ) services: Windows, Linux, or AIX.

Related topics

Agent-architecture

Enabling-Agentless-Service-monitoring-on-IBM-MQ

Different operating systems/hardware platforms represent data in different ways.

For example, string data might be in a different code page and numeric data might be represented in a different byte order. These differences cause the collected performance data to be converted, some portions by IBM MQ, some portions by the MVMM  extensions. There is a performance cost associated with such conversion.

To avoid extra work, BMC recommends that you deploy your Agentless Services on operating systems that have similar data representation to the target operating systems/hardware platforms wherever possible.

 Architecture_for_agentless_monitoring_on_IBM MQ.png

When used in this configuration, MVMM  utilizes the IBM MQ client bindings and the IBM MQ MQCONNX call to connect to the remote IBM MQ queue managers via a CLNTCONN/SVRCONN channel pair. By default, the MVMM  Agentless Services connect using the SYSTEM.ADMIN.SVRCONN server connection channel to each queue manager and send messages to the SYSTEM.ADMIN.COMMAND.QUEUE and retrieve replies from a dynamic queue created based upon the SYSTEM.MQSC.REPLY.QUEUE model queue. The actual names of the channel and reply queue can be changed. See the Agentpref Utility for details.

Because no BMC software is installed on the monitored MQ Server, the MQ Administrator must ensure that the specified queues and channel are defined and that the Agentless Services can connect to the monitored queue manager as a client and perform administrative operations. These operations include, but are not limited to:

  • Opening the required port in any firewalls
  • Verifying network connectivity and host resolution between the MVMM  Agentless Services and the monitored queue manager
  • Ensuring that the MVMM  Agentless Services have and are configured for any required SSL certificates, security exits
  • Ensuring that no MQ ChannelAuth rules block access to the target queue manager
  • Ensuring that the MVMM  Agentless Services run under or are mapped to a user with full MQ administrative authority on the monitored queue manager

See the IBM documentation for details of establishing an MQ Client Connection.

 

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