System Administration Guide

Administration on WebSphere MQ for Windows

On WebSphere MQ for Windows you can perform administration tasks using:

PCF commands, MQSC commands, and control commands, as described in Performing administration tasks using commands
The WebSphere MQ Explorer snap-in and the WebSphere MQ Services snap-in applications, running under the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
The Windows Default Configuration application

WebSphere MQ also supports use of the Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS).

Using the WebSphere MQ Explorer

The WebSphere MQ Explorer is an application that runs under the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). It provides a graphical user interface for controlling resources in a network. Using the WebSphere MQ Explorer, you can:

Define and control various resources including queue managers, queues, channels, process definitions, client connections, namelists, and clusters.
Start or stop a local queue manager and its associated processes.
View queue managers and their associated objects on your workstation or from other workstations.
Check the status of queue managers, clusters, and channels.
Check to see which applications, users, or channels have a particular queue open.

You can invoke the WebSphere MQ Explorer from the First Steps application, or from the Windows Start prompt.

See Chapter 7, "Administration using the WebSphere MQ Explorer" for more information.

Using the WebSphere MQ Services snap-in

The WebSphere MQ Services snap-in is an application that runs under the MMC. It allows you to perform more advanced tasks, typically associated with setting up and fine tuning the working environment for WebSphere MQ. For example, you can:

Start or stop a queue manager, either locally or on another Windows system.
Change the default queue manager.
Start or stop individual WebSphere MQ processes such as a channel initiator or listener.
Start or stop the command server.
Start or stop the service trace.
Set a queue manager to start automatically when you start up your workstation.

For more information, see Chapter 8, "Administration using the WebSphere MQ Services snap-in".

Using the Windows Default Configuration application

You can use the Windows Default Configuration program from the WebSphere MQ First Steps application to create a starter (or default) set of WebSphere MQ objects. A summary of the default objects created is listed in Table 27.

Using the Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS)

Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) enables you to connect servers into a cluster, giving higher availability of data and applications, and making it easier to manage the system. MSCS can automatically detect and recover from server or application failures.

It is important not to confuse clusters in the MSCS sense with WebSphere MQ clusters. The distinction is:

WebSphere MQ clusters: are groups of two or more queue managers on one or more computers, providing automatic interconnection, and allowing queues to be shared amongst them for load balancing and redundancy.
MSCS clusters: are groups of computers, connected together and configured in such a way that, if one fails, MSCS performs a failover, transferring the state data of applications from the failing computer to another computer in the cluster and reinitiating their operation there.

Chapter 13, Supporting the Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) provides detailed information on how to configure your WebSphere MQ for Windows system to use MSCS.