Setting up an Object Activation Daemon

WebSphere MQ provides a facility, called triggering, that enables automatic application startup when messages are available for retrieval. InterChange Server uses an MQ-triggered Object Activation Daemon (OAD) to handle the following tasks:

This MQ-triggered OAD uses the triggering feature of WebSphere MQ to restart an adapter agent.

Follow these steps to set up this OAD:

  1. Ensure that WebSphere MQ is installed. For more information on installing WebSphere MQ, seeInstalling WebSphere MQ.
  2. Configure WebSphere MQ for MQ-triggered OAD.
  3. Start the MQ Trigger Monitor
  4. Configure an adapter for automatic and remote restart

Installing the OAD software

The MQ-triggered OAD requires installation of the MQ Trigger Monitor. This monitor is installed as part of the WebSphere MQ software, described in Installing and configuring WebSphere MQ. This software must be on the machine on which the connector agent resides.

Note:
If MQ Server is not installed on the connector agent machine, the WebSphere MQ Client must be installed.

In the following diagram, each connector agent participates in remote starts, automatic restarts, or both. The WebSphere MQ software must be on each machine on which a participating connector agent resides. Note that only one MQ Trigger Monitor is required on a machine, regardless of how many connector agents are on that machine. If the local machine has WebSphere MQ Server installed, the runmqtrm command invokes the MQ Trigger Monitor daemon. If the local machine has WebSphere MQ Client installed, the runmqtmc command invokes the MQ Trigger Monitor daemon.

In the figure above:

For more information on how to install WebSphere MQ, see Installing and configuring WebSphere MQ.

Configuring WebSphere MQ for MQ-triggered OAD

To support MQ-triggered OAD, the WebSphere MQ queue manager must be configured to handle triggers. This support requires that the MQ-related objects be created on the same machine that contains MQ queue manager.

Table 12. MQ-related objects for MQ-triggered OAD

MQ-related object Description
INITIATION.QUEUE Receives trigger messages for MQ Trigger Monitor from the MQ queue manager
Process definition Describes the process that MQ Trigger Monitor invokes when it retrieves a trigger message from the initiation queue
Adapter-activation queue Receives triggering events for an adapter from InterChange Server

To create these MQ-related objects, run the mqtriggersetup.bat script, which resides in the bin subdirectory of the product directory. Run this script on the machine that contains the MQ queue manager.

Note:
Before you run mqtriggersetup.bat, you must have already created the MQ queue manager for use with InterChange Server (ICS). The configure_mq script creates the queue manager. For more information, see Installing and configuring WebSphere MQ.

The mqtriggersetup.bat script has the following syntax:

mqtriggersetup.bat WICS_queueManager adapterName adapterStartupScript ICSinstance:

where:

For example, to set up automatic and remote restart for an adapter called MyAdapter, use the following call to mqtriggersetup.bat:

mqtriggersetup.bat InterChangeServer.queue.manager MyAdapter My_ICS

C:\Program Files\IBM\WebSphereBI\connectors\MyAdapter\start_MyAdapter.

Run the mqtriggersetup.bat script for each adapter that resides on the same machine. In addition, if any of your connectors are on remote machines, you must run this script on each machine where the MQ Queue manager is installed.

Starting the MQ-triggered OAD

To start the MQ-triggered OAD, you must start MQ Trigger Monitor in either of the following ways:

You must start an MQ Trigger Monitor on each machine on which adapters are installed.

Explicitly starting MQ Trigger Monitor

When you install WebSphere MQ, the installation program installs the runmqtrm or runmqtmc files. These scripts start the MQ Trigger Monitor as part of MQ Server or MQ Client, respectively. For example, the following command starts MQ Trigger Monitor (in an MQ server release):

runmqtrm -m WICS_queueManager -q INITIATION.QUEUE

where WICS_queueManager is the name of the MQ queue manager for your InterChange Server.

Note:
To start MQ Trigger Monitor in an MQ Client release, replace runmqtrm with runmqtmc in the syntax above.

Installing MQ Trigger Monitor as a service

If you are configuring an adapter for automatic and remote restart, do not install it to run as a Windows service. Windows services do not communicate with WebSphere MQ. Instead, install MQ Trigger monitor to run as a WebSphere MQ service. When the Windows system starts, MQ Trigger Monitor automatically starts; when ICS restarts, it starts the adapter through the MQ-triggered OAD.

Note:
WebSphere MQ Services, which provides the ability to install MQ Trigger Monitor as a service, is available as part of the WebSphere MQ Server edition. It is not part of the WebSphere MQ Client edition. If you have WebSphere MQ Client, you must start MQ Trigger Monitor as described in Explicitly starting MQ Trigger Monitor.

To use WebSphere MQ Service to install MQ Trigger Monitor as a service, follow these steps:

  1. Open WebSphere MQ Services through the Start > Programs > IBM WebSphere MQ > WebSphere MQ Services.
  2. Right-click the name of the MQ queue manager for the ICS instance and click New > Trigger Monitor on the context menu.
  3. In the Create Trigger Monitor Service dialog box, click the Parameters tab, specify the name of the initiation queue (INITIATION.QUEUE), and click OK.

The Trigger Monitor service appears in the folder of your MQ queue manager. If the initiation queue that you specified exists, WebSphere MQ Services automatically starts MQ Trigger Monitor.

Configuring an adapter for MQ-triggered OAD

To configure an individual adapter so that it uses automatic and remote restart, follow these steps:

  1. Set the adapter's OADAutoRestartAgent configuration property to true.
  2. Set any other OAD configuration properties as necessary.

For information on how to set these properties, see the System Administration Guide.

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