Learn about meshIQ Kafka Console Our Cost Effective Solution for Robust Kafka Management
A background pattern for hero sections
An icon for a calendar

Published June 15, 2020

It’s been four years since IBM MQ introduced Continuous Delivery (CD) and Long Term Support (LTS) releases.

The main objective was to give MQ users a choice between getting access to the latest and greatest features sooner than later (CD) or using a stable environment that had only bug fixes (LTS).

Do you CD or LTS?
An icon for a calendar

Published June 15, 2020

Previously I wrote about the difference in technology today compared to when MQ first came out. One of the areas that is most notable is network speed and how that relates to I/O as well as reliability.

Advances in technology solve problems while creating new ones
An icon for a calendar

Published May 27, 2020

It is amazing how MQ has managed to stay relevant over all of these years. Looking back to when it first came out in the 1990's, we were dealing with 2400 baud modems connected to remote locations running a number of different technologies, over spotty telephone lines using token ring protocols.

Next Window Please!
An icon for a calendar

Published May 13, 2020

We have seen a lot of usage of MQ Internet Pass-Thru gateway, MQIPT. MQIPT was originally released as a support pack (MS81) and is delivered as a standard feature of MQ (MQ 9.1.4).   The support pack will no longer be supported after September 2020.    

Note, that it is possible to use MQIPT from 9.1.4 and later with earlier versions of MQ.

Using MQIPT For Simplifying MQ Operation Across The Internet
An icon for a calendar

Published May 8, 2020

Recently I have setup test environments on both the IBM MQ and Confluent Kafka cloud offerings. For both of these the setup was quick and simple.  

Since many applications today are using client connections, switching from a locally hosted service to a cloud offering was as simple as changing the connection URL.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs
An icon for a calendar

Published April 6, 2020

COVID - 19 It’s a fact of life that new shiny things are more interesting that old, dull things. And yet it’s the boring stuff that keeps the world working. Once the problems have been ironed out and technology just works, it’s a lot less interesting for innovators to “play” with.

Dealing with legacy systems during the time of COVID - 19 mania