Customizing the z/OS environment

Although you might be installing only one broker initially, you should consider how it will be used in your organization in a few years' time. Planning ahead makes developing your WebSphere Event Broker configuration easier.

You should consider creating the Configuration Manager on z/OS to manage the broker domain. If you are migrating from an earlier version of WebSphere Event Broker you should consider migrating the Configuration Manager previously on Windows.

If you are using Publish/Subscribe with security, you also need a User Name Server. The User Name Server can be on z/OS or on another platform. The queue managers need to be interconnected so that information from the User Name Server can be distributed to the brokers on other queue managers.

A broker requires access to a queue manager and to DB2. A Configuration Manager and User Name Server require access to a queue manager only. A broker cannot share its queue manager with another broker, but a broker can share a queue manager with a Configuration Manager and User Name Server.

You cannot use WebSphere MQ shared queues to hold data related to WebSphere Event Broker as SYSTEM.BROKER queues, but you can use shared queues for your message flow queues.

You can find details of the DB2 database user tables and the WebSphere MQ queues created and used by WebSphere Event Broker on z/OS in the topic mqsicreatebroker command

You need to create started task procedures for the broker, User Name Server, and Configuration Managers that you plan to use. These procedures need to be defined, in the started task table, with an appropriate user ID.

You need to decide on your recovery strategy. As part of your systems architecture, you should have a strategy for restarting systems if they end abnormally. Common solutions are to use automation products like NetView or the Automatic Restart Manager (ARM) facility. You can configure WebSphere Event Broker to use ARM.

You must also plan for corequisite products, including UNIX System Services, Resource Recovery Services, DB2, WebSphere MQ, and Java.

You must ensure that the runtime library system (RTLS) for the broker is turned off in the language environment default options for the system. This is because the broker code is compiled using XPLINK and XPLINK applications can not be started while RTLS is active.

Related concepts
Overview of message serialization
Related tasks
Using WebSphere MQ shared queues for input and output (z/OS)
Setting up z/OS security
Related reference
mqsicreatebroker command