Deploying a HA IBM MQ Queue Manager Cluster on Compute Engine with GlusterFS

This tutorial walks you through the process of deploying a highly available IBM MQ queue manager cluster using Compute Engine on Google Cloud. MQ transports data between these points through a queuing system that ensures delivery in case of network or application failure.

This tutorial is useful if you are an enterprise architect, sysadmin, developer, or devops engineer who wants to deploy a highly available IBM MQ queue manager cluster on Google Cloud.

The tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the following:

• Ubuntu server 16.04
• IBM MQ
• Compute Engine
• Network Services Load Balancing

Objectives

• Create the Compute Engine instances.
• Create the firewall rules.
• Create the internal load balancers.
• Configure the GlusterFS shared file system.
• Configure each node of the cluster.
• Configure the cluster for high availability.
• Test the cluster.

Costs

This tutorial uses billable components of Google Cloud, including:

• Compute Engine
• Networking

Use the Pricing Calculator to generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Account.

   If you don't already have one, sign up for a new account.

2. In the Google Cloud Console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to the project selector page

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Cloud project. Learn how to confirm that billing is enabled for your project.

4. Enable the Compute Engine API.

   Enable the API

When you finish this tutorial, you can avoid continued billing by deleting the resources you created. See Cleaning up for more detail.

Architecture

To create a highly available and scalable deployment of IBM MQ, this solution combines queue manager clusters with multi-instance queue managers. Multi-instance queue managers run in an active/standby configuration, using a shared volume to share configuration and state data. Clustered queue managers share configuration information using a network channel and can perform load balancing of incoming messages. However, message state is not shared between the two queue managers.

By using both deployment models, you can achieve redundancy at the queue manager level and then scale by distributing the load across one or more queue managers.

In this tutorial, you create two queue managers, referred to as A and B. For each queue manager, you create a primary node and standby node (mq-1 and mq-2 for queue manager A, and mq-3 and mq-4 for queue manager B). To route traffic to the primary instances, you use internal load balancers, one for each queue manager. Consumers and publishers are pointed to the load balancer addresses as if those were the direct queue managers addresses. The queue managers communicate with each other through the internal load balancers as well.

IBM MQ multi-instance queue managers require shared storage. In this tutorial, you use GlusterFS, a distributed, scalable file system, as a shared file system between the nodes of each multi-instance queue manager.

Creating the Compute Engine instances

You now create the compute resources required for this tutorial. Compute Engine instances mq-1 and mq-2 will be the primary and standby nodes for queue manager A, and mq-3 and mq-4 will be the primary and standby nodes for queue manager B. You also create unmanaged instance groups for each instance, because they are in different zones. You will attach the unmanaged instance groups to the load balancer later.

1. Open Cloud Shell.

   GO TO Cloud Shell

2. Create a startup script for the MQ compute instances:

   cat << 'EOF' >  mqstartup.sh
   #!/bin/bash
   
   if [ -f /root/INSTALLATION_DONE ]; then
     echo "Skipping because installation completed."
     exit 0
   fi
   
   # Docker installation
   
   apt-get install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
   curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | apt-key add -
   add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
   apt-get update
   apt-get install -y docker-ce
   
   # GlusterFS installation
   
   apt-get install -y glusterfs-server
   
   # Format and mount the persistent disk
   
   mkdir -p /data
   mkfs.ext4 -m 0 -F -E lazy_itable_init=0,lazy_journal_init=0,discard /dev/sdb
   mount -o discard,defaults /dev/sdb /data
   
   touch /root/INSTALLATION_DONE
   EOF
   

3. Create a Compute Engine instance for the primary node for queue manager A:

   gcloud compute instances create mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --machine-type=n1-standard-1 \
       --image-family=ubuntu-1604-lts \
       --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
       --boot-disk-size=10GB \
       --boot-disk-type=pd-standard \
       --boot-disk-device-name=mq-1 \
       --create-disk=mode=rw,size=10,type=projects/${DEVSHELL_PROJECT_ID}/zones/us-central1-c/diskTypes/pd-ssd,name=gluster-disk-1 \
       --tags=ibmmq \
       --metadata-from-file startup-script=mqstartup.sh
   

4. Create an unmanaged instance group and add the instance:

   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create mq-group-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c
   
   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances mq-group-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --instances=mq-1
   

5. Create a Compute Engine instance for the standby node of queue manager A:

   gcloud compute instances create mq-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --machine-type=n1-standard-1 \
       --image-family=ubuntu-1604-lts \
       --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
       --boot-disk-size=10GB \
       --boot-disk-type=pd-standard \
       --boot-disk-device-name=mq-2 \
       --create-disk=mode=rw,size=10,type=projects/${DEVSHELL_PROJECT_ID}/zones/us-central1-b/diskTypes/pd-ssd,name=gluster-disk-2 \
       --tags=ibmmq \
       --metadata-from-file startup-script=mqstartup.sh
   

6. Create an unmanaged instance group and add the instance:

   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create mq-group-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b
   
   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances mq-group-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --instances=mq-2
   

7. Create a Compute Engine instance for the primary node of queue manager B:

   gcloud compute instances create mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --machine-type=n1-standard-1 \
       --image-family=ubuntu-1604-lts \
       --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
       --boot-disk-size=10GB \
       --boot-disk-type=pd-standard \
       --boot-disk-device-name=mq-3 \
       --create-disk=mode=rw,size=10,type=projects/${DEVSHELL_PROJECT_ID}/zones/us-central1-a/diskTypes/pd-ssd,name=gluster-disk-3 \
       --tags=ibmmq \
       --metadata-from-file startup-script=mqstartup.sh
   

8. Create an unmanaged instance group and add the instance:

   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create mq-group-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a
   
   gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances mq-group-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --instances=mq-3
   

9. Create a Compute Engine instance for the standby node of queue manager B:

   gcloud compute instances create mq-4 \
       --zone=us-central1-f \
       --machine-type=n1-standard-1 \
       --image-family=ubuntu-1604-lts \
       --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
       --boot-disk-size=10GB \
       --boot-disk-type=pd-standard \
       --boot-disk-device-name=mq-4 \
       --create-disk=mode=rw,size=10,type=projects/${DEVSHELL_PROJECT_ID}/zones/us-central1-f/diskTypes/pd-ssd,name=gluster-disk-4 \
       --tags=ibmmq \
       --metadata-from-file startup-script=mqstartup.sh
   

10. Create an unmanaged instance group and add the instance:

    gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged create mq-group-4 \
        --zone=us-central1-f
    
    gcloud compute instance-groups unmanaged add-instances mq-group-4 \
        --zone=us-central1-f \
        --instances=mq-4
    

Creating the firewall rules

In order for the nodes in the cluster to communicate with each other and to receive traffic from the load balancer, you have to create the appropriate firewall rules.

1. Create a firewall rule to allow traffic between nodes of the cluster:

   gcloud compute firewall-rules create ibmmq-transport \
       --allow=tcp:1414 \
       --target-tags ibmmq \
       --source-tags ibmmq
   

2. Create a firewall rule to allow traffic to the queue managers from the health checkers:

   gcloud compute firewall-rules create fw-allow-health-checks \
       --allow=tcp:1414 \
       --target-tags ibmmq \
       --source-ranges 35.191.0.0/16,130.211.0.0/22
   

Setting up the internal TCP load balancer

You now create the internal load balancer that monitors the four instances to determine the two healthy primary instances and route traffic to them.

1. Create the health check:

   gcloud compute health-checks create tcp hc-tcp-1414 \
       --description="Health check: TCP 1414" \
       --check-interval=2s \
       --timeout=2s \
       --healthy-threshold=2 \
       --unhealthy-threshold=2 \
       --port=1414
   

2. Create the backend services:

   gcloud compute backend-services create mqm-svc-a \
       --load-balancing-scheme internal \
       --region us-central1 \
       --health-checks hc-tcp-1414 \
       --protocol tcp
   
   gcloud compute backend-services create mqm-svc-b \
       --load-balancing-scheme internal \
       --region us-central1 \
       --health-checks hc-tcp-1414 \
       --protocol tcp
   

3. Add the unmanaged instance groups to the backend services:

   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend mqm-svc-a \
       --instance-group mq-group-1 \
       --instance-group-zone us-central1-c \
       --region us-central1
   
   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend mqm-svc-a \
       --instance-group mq-group-2 \
       --instance-group-zone us-central1-b \
       --region us-central1
   
   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend mqm-svc-b \
       --instance-group mq-group-3 \
       --instance-group-zone us-central1-a \
       --region us-central1
   
   gcloud compute backend-services add-backend mqm-svc-b \
       --instance-group mq-group-4 \
       --instance-group-zone us-central1-f \
       --region us-central1
   

4. Create the forwarding rule:

   gcloud compute forwarding-rules create mqm-svc-a-forwarding-rule \
       --load-balancing-scheme internal \
       --ports 1414 --network default \
       --address 10.128.0.100 \
       --region us-central1 \
       --backend-service mqm-svc-a
   
   gcloud compute forwarding-rules create mqm-svc-b-forwarding-rule \
       --load-balancing-scheme internal \
       --ports 1414 \
       --network default \
       --address 10.128.0.101 \
       --region us-central1 \
       --backend-service mqm-svc-b
   

Creating and mounting the GlusterFS volume for queue manager A

In this tutorial, you use the GlusterFS distributed file system as shared storage between nodes of a queue manager. You now set up GlusterFS for queue manager A by deploying it on the mq-1 and mq-2 instances.

1. Initialize the GlusterFS trusted pool on mq-1 by probing mq-2:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /data/gv0 && sudo gluster peer probe mq-2' \
       -- -t
   

2. Initialize GlusterFS trusted pool on mq-2 by probing mq-1:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /data/gv0 && sudo gluster peer probe mq-1' \
       -- -t
   

3. Start GlusterFS replication:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --command='sudo gluster volume create mq-data replica 2 mq-1:/data/gv0 mq-2:/data/gv0 && sudo gluster volume start mq-data' \
       -- -t
   

4. Mount the shared volume on mq-2:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-2 \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mqm_glusterfs && sudo mount -t glusterfs mq-1:/mq-data /mnt/mqm_glusterfs' \
       -- -t
   

5. Mount the shared volume on mq-1:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mqm_glusterfs && sudo mount -t glusterfs mq-1:/mq-data /mnt/mqm_glusterfs' \
       -- -t
   

6. Verify the shared volume status:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command='sudo gluster volume info'
   

   Except for the volume ID, the output looks like the following:

   Volume Name: mq-data
   Type: Replicate
   Volume ID: ad63f6df-8469-4f30-9282-5a285d1a2b87
   Status: Started
   Number of Bricks: 1 x 2 = 2
   Transport-type: tcp
   Bricks:
   Brick1: mq-1:/data/gv0
   Brick2: mq-2:/data/gv0
   Options Reconfigured:
   performance.readdir-ahead: on
   

Creating and mounting the GlusterFS volume for queue manager B

You now set up GlusterFS for queue manager B by deploying it on mq-3 and mq-4 instances.

1. Initialize the GlusterFS trusted pool on mq-3 by probing mq-4:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /data/gv0 && sudo gluster peer probe mq-4' \
       -- -t
   

2. Initialize the GlusterFS trusted pool on mq-4 by probing mq-3:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-4 \
       --zone=us-central1-f \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /data/gv0 && sudo gluster peer probe mq-3' \
       -- -t
   

3. Start GlusterFS replication:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-4 \
       --zone=us-central1-f \
       --command='sudo gluster volume create mq-data replica 2 mq-3:/data/gv0 mq-4:/data/gv0 && sudo gluster volume start mq-data' \
       -- -t
   

4. Mount the shared volume on mq-4:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-4 \
       --zone=us-central1-f \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mqm_glusterfs && sudo mount -t glusterfs mq-3:/mq-data /mnt/mqm_glusterfs' \
       -- -t
   

5. Mount the shared volume on mq-3:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command='sudo mkdir -p /mnt/mqm_glusterfs && sudo mount -t glusterfs mq-3:/mq-data /mnt/mqm_glusterfs' \
       -- -t
   

6. Verify the shared volume status:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command='sudo gluster volume info'
   

   Except for the volume ID, you see the following output:

   Volume Name: mq-data
   Type: Replicate
   Volume ID: ad63f6df-8469-4f30-9282-5a285d1a2b87
   Status: Started
   Number of Bricks: 1 x 2 = 2
   Transport-type: tcp
   Bricks:
   Brick1: mq-3:/data/gv0
   Brick2: mq-4:/data/gv0
   Options Reconfigured:
   performance.readdir-ahead: on
   

Initialize queue manager A

You now run a series of commands on mq-1 that define the name of the queue manager, the shared storage, the incoming and outgoing communication channels, authentication, and the other queue manager in the queue manager cluster.

1. In Cloud Shell, run a temporary MQ container on mq-1 and connect to it:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command='sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=A --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --network host --name=ibmmq-init --rm=true  ibmcom/mq:latest ' \
      -- -t
   

2. Enter cluster and queue definitions:

   mkdir -p /mnt/mqm/data
   chown mqm:mqm /mnt/mqm/data
   /opt/mqm/bin/crtmqdir -f -s
   su mqm -c "cp /etc/mqm/web/installations/Installation1/servers/mqweb/*.xml /var/mqm/web/installations/Installation1/servers/mqweb/"
   su mqm -c "crtmqm -q -p 1414 $MQ_QMGR_NAME"
   su mqm -c "strmqm -x"
   

3. Configure queue manager A for clustering:

   echo "
   * Define the full repository for the cluster
   ALTER QMGR REPOS(GCP)
   
   * Define backstop rule for channel auth
   SET CHLAUTH('*') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(NOACCESS) DESCR('Back-stop rule - Blocks everyone') ACTION(REPLACE)
   
   * Clustering channels and listeners
   DEFINE LISTENER(A_LS) TRPTYPE(TCP) CONTROL(QMGR)
   
   DEFINE CHANNEL(GCP.A) CHLTYPE(CLUSRCVR) CONNAME('10.128.0.100') CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   DEFINE CHANNEL(GCP.B) CHLTYPE(CLUSSDR) CONNAME('10.128.0.101') CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   
   SET CHLAUTH('GCP.A') TYPE (QMGRMAP) QMNAME(B) USERSRC(CHANNEL) ADDRESS('*')" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME
   

4. Configure the application queue, channel, and authorization:

   echo "
   * Application queues
   DEFINE QLOCAL('APP.QUEUE.1') DEFBIND(NOTFIXED) CLWLUSEQ(ANY) CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   
   * Application topics
   DEFINE TOPIC('APP.BASE.TOPIC') TOPICSTR('app/') REPLACE
   
   * Application connection authentication
   DEFINE AUTHINFO('APP.AUTHINFO') AUTHTYPE(IDPWOS) CHCKCLNT(REQDADM) CHCKLOCL(OPTIONAL) ADOPTCTX(YES) REPLACE
   ALTER QMGR CONNAUTH('APP.AUTHINFO')
   REFRESH SECURITY(*) TYPE(CONNAUTH)
   
   * Application channels
   DEFINE CHANNEL('APP.SVRCONN') CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) MCAUSER('app') REPLACE
   SET CHLAUTH('APP.SVRCONN') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(CHANNEL) CHCKCLNT(REQUIRED) DESCR('Allows connection via APP channel') ACTION(REPLACE)
   
   * Application auth records
   SET AUTHREC GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(QMGR) AUTHADD(CONNECT,INQ)
   SET AUTHREC PROFILE('APP.**') GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(QUEUE) AUTHADD(BROWSE,GET,INQ,PUT)
   SET AUTHREC PROFILE('APP.**') GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(TOPIC) AUTHADD(PUB,SUB)" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME
   
   exit
   

Initialize queue manager B

You now run a similar series of commands on mq-3 that define the same information for the second queue manager: name of the queue manager, the shared storage, the incoming and outgoing communication channels, authentication, and the other queue manager in the queue manager cluster.

1. In Cloud Shell, run a temporary MQ container on mq-3 and connect to it:

   gcloud compute ssh  mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command='sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=B --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --network host --name=ibmmq-init --rm=true ibmcom/mq:latest' \
       -- -t
   

2. Enter cluster and queue definitions. (This is consolidated version of steps 2 through 4 from the procedure you ran for queue manager A.)

   mkdir -p /mnt/mqm/data
   chown mqm:mqm /mnt/mqm/data
   /opt/mqm/bin/crtmqdir -f -s
   su mqm -c "cp /etc/mqm/web/installations/Installation1/servers/mqweb/*.xml /var/mqm/web/installations/Installation1/servers/mqweb/"
   su mqm -c "crtmqm -q -p 1414 $MQ_QMGR_NAME"
   su mqm -c "strmqm -x"
   
   echo "
   * Define the full repository for the cluster
   ALTER QMGR REPOS(GCP)
   
   * Define backstop rule for channel auth
   SET CHLAUTH('*') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(NOACCESS) DESCR('Back-stop rule - Blocks everyone') ACTION(REPLACE)
   
   * Clustering channels and listeners
   DEFINE LISTENER(B_LS) TRPTYPE(TCP) CONTROL(QMGR)
   
   DEFINE CHANNEL(GCP.B) CHLTYPE(CLUSRCVR) CONNAME('10.128.0.101') CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   DEFINE CHANNEL(GCP.A) CHLTYPE(CLUSSDR) CONNAME('10.128.0.100') CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   
   SET CHLAUTH('GCP.B') TYPE (QMGRMAP) QMNAME(A) USERSRC(CHANNEL) ADDRESS('*')
   
   * Application queues
   DEFINE QLOCAL('APP.QUEUE.1') DEFBIND(NOTFIXED) CLWLUSEQ(ANY) CLUSTER(GCP) REPLACE
   
   * Application topics
   DEFINE TOPIC('APP.BASE.TOPIC') TOPICSTR('app/') REPLACE
   
   * Application connection authentication
   DEFINE AUTHINFO('APP.AUTHINFO') AUTHTYPE(IDPWOS) CHCKCLNT(REQDADM) CHCKLOCL(OPTIONAL) ADOPTCTX(YES) REPLACE
   ALTER QMGR CONNAUTH('APP.AUTHINFO')
   REFRESH SECURITY(*) TYPE(CONNAUTH)
   
   * Application channels
   DEFINE CHANNEL('APP.SVRCONN') CHLTYPE(SVRCONN) MCAUSER('app') REPLACE
   SET CHLAUTH('APP.SVRCONN') TYPE(ADDRESSMAP) ADDRESS('*') USERSRC(CHANNEL) CHCKCLNT(REQUIRED) DESCR('Allows connection via APP channel') ACTION(REPLACE)
   
   * Application auth records
   SET AUTHREC GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(QMGR) AUTHADD(CONNECT,INQ)
   SET AUTHREC PROFILE('APP.**') GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(QUEUE) AUTHADD(BROWSE,GET,INQ,PUT)
   SET AUTHREC PROFILE('APP.**') GROUP('mqclient') OBJTYPE(TOPIC) AUTHADD(PUB,SUB)" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME
   
   exit
   

Starting IBM MQ in HA mode

Now that the queue managers are initialized, you can start the IBM MQ cluster.

1. In Cloud Shell, start queue manager A on mq-1:

   gcloud compute ssh  mq-1  \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command="sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=A  --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --publish 1414:1414 --network host --name=ibmmq-node --rm=true -d ibmcom/mq:latest -c 'echo app:APPPass1! | chpasswd && su mqm -c \"strmqm -x\"; tail -f /dev/null'"
   

   For purposes of this tutorial, in this command you set AppPass1! as the password for the user app.

2. Start queue manager A on mq-2:

   gcloud compute ssh  mq-2  \
       --zone=us-central1-b \
       --command="sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=A --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --publish 1414:1414 --network host --name=ibmmq-node --rm=true -d ibmcom/mq:latest -c 'echo app:APPPass1! | chpasswd && su mqm -c \"strmqm -x\"; tail -f /dev/null'"
   

   In this command, you set AppPass1! as the password for the user app.

3. To check the status of your load balancer, go to the Load balancing page in the Cloud Console.

   OPEN THE LOAD BALANCING PAGE

4. From the list, select load balancer mqm-svc-a.

   

   When the load balancer mqm-svc-a shows that it has a healthy instance group (as shown in the screenshot above), you're ready to go to the next step.

5. In Cloud Shell, start queue manager B on mq-3:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command="sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=B --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --publish 1414:1414 --network host --name=ibmmq-node --rm=true -d ibmcom/mq:latest -c 'echo app:APPPass1! | chpasswd && su mqm -c \"strmqm -x\"; tail -f /dev/null'"
   

6. Start queue manager B on mq-4:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-4 \
       --zone=us-central1-f \
       --command="sudo docker run -it --entrypoint=/bin/bash --env LICENSE=accept --env MQ_QMGR_NAME=B --volume /mnt/mqm_glusterfs:/mnt/mqm --publish 1414:1414 --network host --name=ibmmq-node --rm=true -d ibmcom/mq:latest -c 'echo app:APPPass1! | chpasswd && su mqm -c \"strmqm -x\"; tail -f /dev/null'"
   

Verifying the cluster

Before you test your deployment, you need to verify that queue manager A and queue manager B are communicating correctly.

1. In Cloud Shell, connect to the IBM MQ container on mq-3:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command="sudo docker exec -it ibmmq-node /bin/bash" \
       -- -t
   

2. Check the status of the cluster communication channels:

   echo "DISPLAY CHSTATUS(*)" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME && exit
   

   If everything is working correctly, the output looks like the following:

   5724-H72 (C) Copyright IBM Corp. 1994, 2018.
   Starting MQSC for queue manager B.
   
        1 : display chstatus(*)
   AMQ8417I: Display Channel Status details.
      CHANNEL(GCP.B)                          CHLTYPE(CLUSRCVR)
      CONNAME(10.128.0.2)                     CURRENT
      RQMNAME(A)                              STATUS(RUNNING)
      SUBSTATE(RECEIVE)
   AMQ8417I: Display Channel Status details.
      CHANNEL(GCP.A)                          CHLTYPE(CLUSSDR)
      CONNAME(10.128.0.100(1414))             CURRENT
      RQMNAME(A)                              STATUS(RUNNING)
      SUBSTATE(MQGET)           XMITQ(SYSTEM.CLUSTER.TRANSMIT.QUEUE)
   One MQSC command read.
   No commands have a syntax error.
   All valid MQSC commands were processed.
   

Sending messages to the cluster

You now test the cluster by sending 2 messages to a queue named APP.QUEUE.1 using a sample application provided by IBM in the Docker image.

Send test messages to queue manager B

1. In Cloud Shell, connect to the IBM MQ container on mq-3:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a \
       --command="sudo docker exec -it ibmmq-node /bin/bash" \
       -- -t
   

2. In the terminal shell, launch the message sender application connecting to queue manager B:

   MQSAMP_USER_ID=app /opt/mqm/samp/bin/amqsput APP.QUEUE.1 B
   

3. When prompted, authenticate by entering the app password you created earlier (in this tutorial, it's APPPass1!).

4. When you see target queue is APP.QUEUE.1, send a test message to the queue by entering abcdef.

5. Send another test message by entering 123456.

6. Press Enter to quit the message sender application.

   The output looks like the following:

   Sample AMQSPUT0 start
   Enter password: *********
   target queue is APP.QUEUE.1
   abcdef
   123456
   
   Sample AMQSPUT0 end
   

7. Verify that there is one message in flight in queue manager B:

   echo "display qstatus(APP.QUEUE.1)" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME | grep CURDEPTH
   

   There is only one message in flight, because IBM MQ load balancing routed the other message to queue manager A, as will be described later.

8. Close the SSH connection:

   exit
   

   You see the following output:

   CURDEPTH(1)                             IPPROCS(0)
   

   Queue manager B has one message in flight even though in the previous step you sent two messages. This is because IBM MQ load-balances the messages between queue managers, and the second message was sent to queue manager A.

Verify messages in flight in queue manager A

1. In Cloud Shell, connect to the IBM MQ container on mq-1:

   gcloud compute ssh mq-1 \
       --zone=us-central1-c \
       --command="sudo docker exec -it ibmmq-node /bin/bash" \
       -- -t
   

2. In the terminal window, verify that there is one message in flight in queue manager A:

   echo "display qstatus(APP.QUEUE.1)" | runmqsc $MQ_QMGR_NAME | grep CURDEPTH
   

   You see the following output:

   CURDEPTH(1)                             IPPROCS(0)
   

Testing queue manager high availability

You now shut down instance mq-3 and verify that mq-4 becomes the primary for queue manager B.

1. In Cloud Shell, stop instance mq-3:

   gcloud compute instances stop mq-3 \
       --zone=us-central1-a
   

2. Verify that mq-4 has become the primary instance by checking that it is healthy from the load balancer's perspective:

   gcloud compute backend-services get-health mqm-svc-b \
       --region=us-central1
   

   You see output like the following:

   backend: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ibmmq1/zones/us-central1-a/instanceGroups/mq-group-3
   status:
         kind: compute#backendServiceGroupHealth---backend: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ibmmq1/zones/us-central1-f/instanceGroups/mq-group-4
   status:
         healthStatus:
       - healthState: HEALTHY
       instance: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ibmmq1/zones/us-central1-f/instances/mq-4
       ipAddress: 10.128.0.5
       port: 80
       kind: compute#backendServiceGroupHealth
   

Moving to production

In this tutorial, you used IBM MQ Advanced for Developers. Before you move to production, review other available licensing and features sets. You should also review IBM's documentation on running IBM MQ in a container before deploying to production.

Cleaning up

After you've finished the tutorial, you can clean up the resources that you created on Google Cloud so they won't take up quota and you won't be billed for them in the future. The following sections describe how to delete or turn off these resources.

Delete the project

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:
• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for this tutorial, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.
1. In the Cloud Console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to Manage resources

2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

What's next

• Read more about IBM MQ.
• Read about IBM MQ high availability configurations.
• Read more about internal load balancers.
• Learn more about GlusterFS.
• Try out other Google Cloud features for yourself. Have a look at our tutorials.