Answers for MQ interview questions 1.

If the QM you are removing is a repository QM then join a new QM to the cluster beforeremoving existing full repository QM2.Set the repository(REPOS) attribute of the QM to blank Use ALTER QMGR REPOS(' ') 2) How to enable auto-definition of channel definitionsA QM can be configured to automatically create channel objects in response to MCA connectionrequestChannel auto definition is enabled for a QM by configuring the CHAD attribute of QM toENABLEDCHAD(ENABLED) 3) How to remove a QM from a cluster 3.Use SUSPEND QMGR CLUSTER command in mqsc to suspend the QM in the cluster 4.Inform the QMs in cluster that the QM is leaving the cluster.So,Set the cluster attribute of that cluster receiver channel object to blank.ALTER CHANNEL('To.QM) CHLTYPE(CLUSRCVR) CLUSTER(' ') 5.Issue stop channel command for cluster receiver channelSTOP CHANNEL('To.QM')6.Issue a refresh cluster command against the QM for the cluster that the QM is leaving.Thisensures that the information about the cluster is cleared fromfrom repository held by the QM4) What exactly happens when you issue SUSPEND QMSuspending a QM is not the same as removing it from the cluster.The QM will be still in the machine in running state and you can put and get messages.'Suspend QM' tells the workload management routines to avoid sending messages to it.And its an Advice to other queue managers in the cluster to avoid sending messages to thesuspended qm.THis is useful before performing planned mainatenance on the QM to recommend toapplications that they do not route messages when it is unavailable. 6) What exactly happens when you add a QM to cluster The QM will become the member of the cluster and can share queue objects within cluster byusing cluster(CLUSTER)or cluster namelist (CLUSNL)attributes.Existing queue objects can be altered and new ones can be defined.THis QM will have the knowledge of the resources hosted within the cluster without explicitlocal definition for those resources. 7) What do you do when channel goes to RETRYchannel automatically retries the connection at regular intervals.The behaviour is defined using shortretry intervel(SHORTTMR),long retry intervel(LONGTMR),short retry count(SHORTRTY) and Long retry count(LONGRTY) attributes of channel object.AFter the number of configured retry attempts have been performed,the channel enters STOPPED status automatically. THen the user has to issue START comand to start the channel manually. 8) Why does a channel go to RETRY stateIf an attempt to start the channel has failed then the channel will goto retry stateeg: Listener not running in the receiver sidewrong ip address is specified in sdr channel definitionWrong port address of the listener is mentioned in sdr chl definition 10) Location of log directoriesIn unix,if mq is the place where MQ is installed then log files will be inSystem error logs will be in : mq/var/mqm/errorsQM error log directories (eg: for queue manager QM1): mq/var/mqm/qmgrs/QM1/errors 11) How to take MQ backupBacking up of QM data:End the queuemanager and take the copies of all the QM data and logfile directories(especially logcontrol file and configuration file)in some other machine for backupUsing backup Qmgr:An existing queue manager can have a dedicated backup queue manager. A backup queue manager isan inactive copy of the existing queue manager.If the existing queue manager becomes unrecoverable due to severe hardware failure, the backupqueue managercan be brought online to replace the unrecoverable queue manager.

12) How is recovery different in circular logging and linear loggingCircular logging stores the log in a ring manner.when all the files are full it goes back to first file in thering and starts againHence during recovery,any freed files prior to checkpoint can be reused.The primary log files mighteligible for reuse after filling the current file.Linear logging keeps log data in a continious sequence of files.space is not reused,so you can alwaysretrive any record logged in any log extent thathas not been deleted.During recovery,the freed log files are no longer accessed and become inactive. 13) How to identify, how many logs are required for QM archivingThe size of the log depends, typically, on the number and size of the persistent messages the queuemanager needs to handle.You can change the number of primary and secondary log files each time the queue manager starts.You cannot change the log file size; you must determine it before creating the queue manager.After deciding whether the queue manager should use circular or linear logging, you need to estimatethe size of the log that the queue manager needs. The size of the log is determined by the following logconfiguration parameters:LogFilePages. The size of each primary and secondary log file in units of 4K pagesLogPrimaryFilesThe number of preallocated primary log filesLogSecondaryFilesThe number of secondary log files that can be created for use when the primary log files are full

14) What is MQ SyncpointSyncpoint cordination is the process by which units of work or either commited or backed out with dataintegrity.At the end of transaction messages can be commited or back out the changes. However it can be moreuseful for an application to synchronise data changes at other logical points within the transaction.These logical points are called syncpoints

15) What is MQ checkpointWhile storing the MQ logs, for easy back-up, checkpoints are used. For example while logging contents,after 10 transactions get completed a checkpoint is issued. We can retrive the stored information fromthe checkpoint in case of recovery.A checkpoint is a point in time when the record described in the log is same as record inqueue.Checkpoint itself consists of series of log records needed to restart QM. for eg: the state of alltransactions active at the time of checkpoint.chkpoint record represents the most recent point of consistency between log and data.

17) How to check if you need to commit or rollback a transaction from sequence nos available in channelstatusBoth sender and rcvr MCAs maintain sequence number related to number of messages successfullytransferred over the channel.If we are sending the messages in batches of 50,if the msg seq no is 50,then need to commit the uowelse roll backIf all the 50 messages in batch has succefully send through channels and received by the receiving QMthen the work should be commited.

18) How many types of logs are available in MQ two..ACtive and archive logsWebSphere MQ directly uses active logs to log WebSphere MQ changes. When these logs become full,they are copied to archive logs.The archive logs can be on tape or on disk. The archive logs are typically created as disk GDG data sets.There are two types of logging methods circular and linear. 20 ) How many minimum sender-rcvr chnls r reqd for 4 QMs in clusterTwo QM's can act as full repos usually.so they should be tightly coupled.so all the 4 QMs should have rcv channel with their own ip addressall the QM should have sdr channel with repos QM's ip address so totally 4 sdr and 4 rcvr should be