How would I set up MQ so that every message received is immediately written to file system?
I have the “redbooks”, but at least need someone at least point me to a chapter or heading in the book to figure it out.
We are a .NET shop. I have written C# via API to read the queue, and we currently use BizTalk MQ adapter. Our ultimate goal is to write same message to multiple directories in file system to “clone” the feed for our various test environments (DEV, STAGE, TRAINING, etc..). The problem with BizTalk is that when we consume the message, we map it at the same time to a new message, so the message is already changed, and we want the original raw message to be cloned, not the morphed one. Our vendors don’t offer multiple copies of the feed, for example, they offer DEV and PROD, but we have 4 systems internally.
I suppose I could do a C# Windows Service to do it, but I would rather use built-in features of MQ if possible.
There is no configuration required. If the message is persistent, WMQ writes it to disk. However, I don’t think that’s going to help you because they are not written as discrete messages. There’s no disk file to copy and replication only works if the replicated QMgr is identical to the primary and is offline during the replication.
There are a number of solutions to this problem but as of WMQ V7, the easiest one is to use the built-in Pub/Sub functionality. This assumes that the messages are arriving over a QMgr-to-QMgr channel and landing on a queue where you then consume them.
In that case, it is possible to delete the queue and create an alias of the same name over a topic. You then create a new queue and define an administrative subscription that delivers messages on the topic into the new queue. Your app consumes from the new queue.
When you need to send a feed to another QMgr or application, define a new subscription and point it at the new destination queue. Since this is Pub/Sub, MQ will replicate the original message as many times as there are subscriptions and the first application and its messages are not affected. If the destination you need to send to isn’t accessible over MQ channels (perhaps DEV and QA are not connected, for example), you can deliver the messages to the new queue, use QLoad from SupportPac MO03 to write them to a file and then use another instance of QLoad to load them onto a different QMgr. If you wanted to move them in real time, you could set up the Q program from SupportPac MA01 to move them direct from the new subscription queue on QMgr1 to the destination queue on QMgr2. And you can replicate across as many systems as you need.
The SupportPacs main page is here.
If all you are using is the Redbooks, you might want to have a look at the Infocenters. Be sure to use the Infocenter matching the version of WMQ you are using.