Roger's Blog on MQ, Java, C, etc… | A blog about IBM MQ, Java, C and other things developers or MQAdmins need to know.

MQTC v2.0.1.5 Platinum Sponsor: Nastel Technologies

March 17, 2015 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware would like to announce that Nastel Technologies is a Platinum Sponsor of MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.5 (MQTC).

For more information, please go to: http://www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off

Essay on ‘How Time Travelling Theoretically Works’

March 13, 2015 Roger Lacroix

And now for something completely different. 🙂

As some of you know, my wife and I have 5 kids. The reason we moved to London, Ontario is so that our kids could go to University of Western Ontario (aka Western) and live at home. Richard (son #1) is in 2nd year Engineering and Tyler (son #2) is in 1st year Engineering.

Richard is taking an ‘Engineering Communications’ course (ES2211) and he had to write an essay with the subject of a ‘process’. So he decided to write about time travel. I read it and thought it was pretty interesting and I thought other geeks might be interested in it.

So, here’s Richard’s essay called: How Time Travelling Theoretically Works, enjoy. 🙂

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education Comments Off

Beta testers needed for MQ Message Replication

March 11, 2015 Roger Lacroix

All,

Capitalware is ready for beta testers for a new solution called: MQ Message Replication.

I get a lot of emails asking me if I have a solution to do message replication/cloning. I always direct people to MMX (Message Multiplexer) application. Some people are happy with this solution but a lot of people say that they cannot change the sending or receiving applications to use MMX. So, the only way to make an exact copy of the message and MQMD header without altering the sending or receiving applications, is to do it via an MQ API Exit. Therefore, I have created an MQ API Exit to do just that.

MQ Message Replication (MQMR) will clone messages being written (via MQPUT or MQPUT1 MQ API call) to a queue and write the exact same messages to ‘n’ output queues (‘n’ can up to 100).

MQMR will clone messages being written to source queue to (up to) 100 target queues and each message put to each target queue is an exact replicate of the original message from the source queue (including the message’s MQMD).

I plan on building MQ Message Replication for AIX, HP-UX (RISC & IA64), Solaris (SPARC & x86_64), Linux (x86, x86_64, POWER & zSeries), Windows and IBM i (OS/400). MQ Message Replication will support WMQ v6.0, v7.0, v7.1, v7.5 and v8.0.

Beta testing MQ Message Replication is absolutely free including support (no strings attached).

If you interesting in trying it out, please send an email to support@capitalware.com to request a trial of MQ Message Replication,

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, MQ Message Replication, Unix, Windows Comments Off

New Feature Requested for MQAUSX (and z/MQAUSX)

March 10, 2015 Roger Lacroix

A customer requested a new feature be added to MQ Authenticate User Security Exit (MQAUSX).

The new feature is called Excessive Client Connections (ECC). ECC is an alert system that counts the number of connections over a period of time (i.e. Day / Hour / Minute) and writes a message to the log when the count exceeds a particular value. If the keyword WriteToEventQueue is set to ‘Y’ then an event message is also written to an event queue. The reason the customer requested the ECC feature, is to catch applications that are poorly written, for example, applications that continuously connect and disconnect from the queue manager for every message sent or received.

i.e.

UseECC=Y
ECCWarnCount=100
ECCInterval=H

The above example says to generate a warning logfile message (and event message) if the channel receives more than 100 connections over the hour.

If you would like to try out the new feature then send an email to
support@capitalware.com and we will send you the latest release of MQAUSX or z/MQAUSX.

Note: The ECC feature has also been added to MQSSX and z/MQSSX.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, MQ Authenticate User Security Exit, MQ Standard Security Exit, Security, Unix, Windows, z/OS Comments Off

WebSphere MQ Fix Pack 8.0.0.2 Released

February 27, 2015 Roger Lacroix

IBM has just released FixPack 8.0.0.2 for WebSphere MQ
http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21697959

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Fix Packs for MQ, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, Unix, Windows Comments Off

A Comparison of Capitalware’s MQAUSX to MQ V8 Authentication

February 26, 2015 Roger Lacroix

The following is a comparison of Capitalware’s MQ Authenticate User Security Exit (MQAUSX) to IBM’s MQ V8 new authentication feature. By authentication, I mean UserId and Password authentication against a target system (i.e. Local OS, LDAP, etc.).

Authentication	IBM MQ V8	MQAUSX & z/MQAUSX
Authentication against Local OS	Yes	Yes
Authentication against LDAP Server	Yes	Yes
Authentication against LDAP Server using SSL	Yes	Yes
Authentication against MS Active Directory from Windows	No	Yes
Number of LDAP calls to perform Authentication	2	1*
Authentication against Quest Authentication Services	No	Yes
Authentication against Centrify’s DirectControl	No	Yes
Authentication against RACF – z/OS only	Yes	Yes
Authentication against ACF2 – z/OS only	Yes	Yes
Authentication against TopSecret – z/OS only	Yes	Yes
Authentication against File Based Authentication	No	Yes
Ability to use more than 1 authentication type per Queue Manager	No	Yes
Ability to set authentication order	No	Yes

Group Functionality	IBM MQ V8	MQAUSX & z/MQAUSX
Only allow the connection if the UserId exists in a particular LDAP Group	No	Yes
Only allow the connection if the UserId exists in a particular Local OS Group	No	Yes
Only allow the connection if the UserId exists in a particular File-based Group	No	Yes

Control Functionality	IBM MQ V8	MQAUSX & z/MQAUSX
Allow/Reject by IP Address	Yes	Yes
Allow/Reject by Hostname (DNS)	Yes	Yes
Allow/Reject by Host by Name	No	Yes
Allow/Reject by SSL DN	Yes	Yes
Allow/Reject by UserId	Yes	Yes
Allow/Reject by MS Active Directory Name	No	Yes
Ability to Reject Self Signed Certificates	No	Yes
Limit the number of connections by Channel	Yes	Yes
Ability to secure cluster channels	Yes	Yes

Mapping Functionality	IBM MQ V8	MQAUSX & z/MQAUSX
Map incoming UserID to another UserId to be used as the connection MCAUSER value	Yes	Yes
Map SSL UserId to the connection MCAUSER value	Yes	Yes
Map the channel’s SSLCertUserID to the connection MCAUSER value – z/OS only	No	Yes

Logging Functionality	IBM MQ V8	MQAUSX & z/MQAUSX
Generate an alert when number of connections by Channel reaches a certain percentage	No	Yes
Logging of successful connections	Partial	Yes
Logging of failed connection attempts	Yes	Yes
Write event message for failed connection attempts	Yes**	Yes

* A single LDAP API call is used for a standard LDAP v3 server. MQAUSX will issue 2 LDAP API calls to Microsoft Active Directory as an LDAP server.

** Event messages must be abled first.

MQ V8 offers basic UserId and Password authentication and control over access granted to an incoming connection (CHLAUTH) whereas MQAUSX offers a robust solution that includes authentication to a variety of different targets and a wide variety of secondary features to control incoming connections.

I hope the above information is useful.

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Capitalware, IBM i (OS/400), IBM MQ, Linux, MQ Authenticate User Security Exit, Security, Unix, Windows, z/OS 5 Comments

Mozilla Firefox 36.0 Released

February 24, 2015 Roger Lacroix

Mozilla Firefox has just released Mozilla Firefox v36.0.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features that are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Linux, macOS (Mac OS X), Open Source, Windows Comments Off

IBM releases IBM MQ Appliance M2000

February 17, 2015 Roger Lacroix

IBM has announced IBM MQ Appliance M2000 that provides an optimized version of IBM MQ V8 that runs in a hardware appliance. IBM MQ provides universal messaging that allows applications, systems, and services to connect and exchange information securely, reliably, rapidly, and simply. Offering MQ capability in hardware appliances, additional features are provided, as well as some appliance benefits.

Rapid time to deployment
Built-in high availability when paired to another
Single or multiple queue managers in a single appliance
Ease of maintenance through certified firmware updates
Browser-based user interface, IBM MQ Console, for monitoring and administration of MQ resources based on roles
High levels of performance and throughput with MQ optimized for appliance hardware

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

IBM MQ, IBM MQ Appliance, Operating Systems, Security Comments Off

MQTC v2.0.1.5 Silver Sponsor: IoPT Consulting

February 17, 2015 Roger Lacroix

Capitalware would like to announce that IoPT Consulting is a Silver Sponsor of MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.5 (MQTC).

IoT is the corporate persona of T.Rob Wyatt. Though known as “The MQ Security Guy,” T.Rob also provides deep expertise in MQ Architecture, clustering, high availability, performance tuning, outage resolution and all other administrative aspects of MQ, AMS, MFT (formerly FTE), and MQTT. T.Rob brings experience from 20 years working exclusively with MQ, a holistic systems approach, excellent communication skills, proven leadership, and aggressive risk management. He will quickly become your trusted advisor for all things MQ. Now through September, you can also get one free pass to MQTC for each 40 hours worked. Call today +1-704-443-8762 for more information.

For more information, please go to: http://www.mqtechconference.com

Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.

Education, IBM MQ, MQ Technical Conference Comments Off