Middleware Mash-Up 2022 User Group Event Recap: Modernize and Optimize Your IBM MQ Environment

By Gabriel Marte Blanco

On Wednesday, November 2^nd, The New York/New Jersey Hybrid Cloud & Integration User Group, co-hosted an event with Middleware Mash-Up at the Crowne Plaza Edison, NJ. If you missed it, you missed quite an event. Focused on optimizing and modernizing your IBM MQ environment, the event featured two presentations out of IBM Hursley from Amy McCormick, Principal Product Manager IBM MQ and from David Ware, IBM MQ Chief Architect and a presentation by MQ expert Nick Glowacki, Executive IT Specialist at IBM. These sessions were followed by an Ask the Experts open question session and an experts discussion panel on IBM MQ Modernization and Optimization Lessons Learned. The final presentation of the day was given by Peter D’Agosta, Chief Product Manager of Infrared360, Avada Software’s IBM MQ advanced administration solution. His session provided optimization tips and techniques for managing IBM MQ in hybrid environments. The sessions were followed by a social event and an Art Afterparty. Here are some key points covered in each session.

The Latest in IBM MQ, @Amy McCormick, Principal Product Manager IBM MQ

Amy touched on the most recent developments in MQ and some tips for the best uses of newer capabilities in the latest version. She discussed why most organizations are seeing less than 1/3 of the impact they expected from digital investments, mostly related to inefficient digital integration across technology platforms, business processes and organizational barriers. She hit on some key points why IBM MQ is the solution for mission critical messaging. This included things like deployment versatility including both cloud and hybrid as well as through appliances and then covered new HA capabilities with MQ Native HA. The last segment was about Advanced Connectivity with Managed File Transfer and IBM MQ Advanced. She covered IBM MQ Advanced, MQ Operator & MQ Advanced Certified Container, and Cloud Native Messaging within the Cloud Pak for Integration. She wrapped up with some aspects of IBM’s strategy for MQ roadmap and discussed how to get involved with MQ future direction through things like the Early Experience Program and the IBM Community.

MQ in the Cloud, @Nick Glowacki, Executive IT Specialist at IBM

Nicks’ unique session took us through a common discussion he has with IBM MQ customers all over the world. The discussion is around moving to a public cloud and understanding the architectural approach, best practices, and what options are when you’re the MQ owner. The presentation explored various ,motivations for moving to cloud and how each impacts that answer as well as pertinent customer topologies before and after. He covered various options in AWS, GCP, IaaS, etc. and went into detail down to Replicated Data Que Managers (RDMQ) and recovery options.[…]