Set up IBM MQ tracing on z/OS

With Dynatrace you can get observability for IBM MQ on z/OS:

  • The CICS, IMS, and z/OS Java modules can trace messages in your applications initiated by IBM MQ clients, including their producer and consumer services across tiers. To learn more about messages queues in Dynatrace, see Queues.
  • The ActiveGate extension can collect metrics from IBM MQ servers. To learn more about it, see IBM MQ ActiveGate extension.

Tracing

Dynatrace can automatically create a continuous service flow for IBM MQ when the producer and consumer services use the same queue or topic name. If the producer and consumer services refer to different queue or topic names, IBM MQ configuration might be required to create a continuous service flow.

Without IBM MQ configuration, Dynatrace can still trace all messages, but the service flow will be broken.

The table lists the available IBM MQ configuration items for queues and topics.

Item

Description

Your action

Queue manager

Queue manager with its queues

Define your queue managers, including alias queues, remote queues, and cluster queues within a single configuration item.

z/OS Queue sharing group

Group of queue managers that access the same shared queues

Specify which queue managers and shared queues belong to a queue-sharing group within a single configuration item.

z/OS IMS bridge

The IBM MQ component that allows direct access to the IMS system

Specify which queue managers and queues belong to an IMS bridge within a single configuration item.

Manage IBM MQ configuration

You can manage an IBM MQ configuration automatically by installing an IBM MQ extension and activating Retrieve topology for improved transaction tracing to retrieve the IBM MQ configuration of your environment and send it to the Settings API. This can also be done manually via the web UI or the Settings API.

Manual configuration via web UI

To manage the IBM MQ configuration via the Dynatrace web UI, go to Settings > Mainframe to find the following menu options:

  • IBM MQ queue managers
  • IBM MQ queue sharing groups
  • IBM MQ IMS bridges

Manual configuration via Settings API

You can manage the IBM MQ configuration via the Dynatrace Settings API.

To be able to use the API you need an access token with Read settings (settings.read) and Write settings (settings.write) scopes. To learn how to obtain it, see Create an access token.

Settings API for IBM MQ tracing: