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The DIY (do it yourself) movement while ageless, is experiencing a rising tide of popularity possibly due the economy’s lethargic performance. You can judge it’s popularity yourself, just based on the number of cable channels dedicated to building anything from a bookshelf to an entire new house. Homeowners needing to do more with less take on tasks that previously they would have called in an expert or specialist to do. With a little help from the DIY channels, they get the job done. What about IT Ops and DevOps? While company profits have increased, the budget’s for many IT teams has remained flat. And yet, there is still work to do. The concept of “self-service” is the IT world’s answer to DIY. One area needing self-service is WebSphere management and monitoring.
IBM WebSphere MQ (WMQ) is nearly ubiquitous in large enterprises. Why? It is a very effective way to integrate applications together in a loosely coupled manner and still interoperate and share data. WMQ is used in payment systems, trading, claims processing and many other mission-critical applications. Think of it as the plumbing or pipes that connect all the parts together.
And yet, only few have access and control over this essential tool. Most often control over the usage and configuration of WMQ rests in the Shared Services or Middleware group. When developers or those in the QA or TEST groups need to test their applications that communicate using WMQ or to attempt to reproduce production problems, they must first contact the Middleware group and request their help. This is laborious, time consuming and expensive.
How can we improve this? We can provide Self-service and enable the stakeholders who would benefit from direct access to WMQ.
Nastel offers a solution, AutoPilot On-Demand for WMQ that provides self-service for WMQ. It is Web-based, does not require an installation and delivers on the need for immediate access to WMQ. Developers using this can view their queues, channels and other components, test and act on messages and perform diagnostics all with in a safe, secure and audited environment.
Some of the capabilities this solution offers, include:
- Web-based management for WebSphere MQ
- Views of queues, channels, queue managers, and subscriptions
- Ability to view and manipulate messages generated by applications
- Self-service diagnostics and monitoring – secure and audited
- Views of queue status and applications
- Act on application specific messages (move, copy, edit, route, replay, create)
Usage of self-service for WMQ reduces the load on the Middleware group and improves the effectiveness of development. Using self-service for WMQ can boost employee productivity and enable IT to be more responsive to WebSphere MQ issues.
DIY WMQ and try it yourself via the Freemium version of AutoPilot on Demand for WMQ.
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