Level: Intermediate Tim Dunn (dunnt@uk.ibm.com), Senior Performance Specialist, IBM
26 Nov 2003 This is a short quick-reference guide detailing the various sources of performance-related information for IBM ® WebSphere® Business Integration Message Broker V5 and its prior releases and WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1.
Introduction
This article helps you understand the characteristics of the product and assists you in designing and implementing efficient implementations. Time invested at the start of a project to understand the characteristics of the product on which you are basing an application is normally time well spent and will yield high returns. It invariably saves you making many of the common mistakes that lead to a poor implementation. You are also able to gain from the experience of others at little or no cost.
What information is available?
The various sections of this article provide published information for WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker. For information about:
- Performance or processing characteristics of a particular version or level of the product, see Performance Reports.
The performance reports provide an overview of the product and give an understanding of the relative costs of using different nodes within a message flow. The reports are not meant to be an exhaustive guide but are intended to show how processing costs will vary dependent on the number and types of nodes which are used within a message flow.
- Performance-related tools that are available, see Tools
These include a capacity planning tool that allows you to develop initial estimates of the volume of message throughput that you might expect based on a simple statement of the message flow characteristics. The output from the tool should be used as a guide only and is certainly not intended to produce an accurate guide to performance. If you require detailed statements of the level of message throughput which is achievable and the resources required to support a given rate you should implement a proof of concept. A tool to help measure message throughput is included. There is also information on how to monitor system utilization on the Windows platform.
This information is derived from two sources, firstly our investigations and profiling of the product and secondly lessons learned from our observations of customers implementations.
SupportPacs, articles, and product support are available at no charge from the IBM Web site:
WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker is closely associated with, and indeed dependent on, WebSphere MQ. Performance information for WebSphere MQ can be found at
SupportPacs.
If the information you want is not included in any of the above, please see Feedback.
Performance reports
A separate performance report is produced for each platform on which WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker runs. The reports follow a similar format. The majority of tests run across the platforms are identical. The only differences relate to platform characteristics. For example an XA connection between WebSphere MQ and a relational database is available on the Windows and UNIX platforms but not on z/OS, which uses Recoverable Resource Manager Services (RRS) instead.
You should use the appropriate report for the platform on which you are working. Do not use the performance report for Windows 2000 to understand the processing characteristics of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker on AIX for example.
How to get performance reports for WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.0 and WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1
Performance reports for WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.0 are available as follows:
Performance reports for WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1 are available as follows:
Tools
Table 1. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
no
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Table 2. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
no
|
no
|
yes
|
yes
|
no
|
Table 3. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
no
|
no
|
no
|
no
|
no
|
yes
|
Table 4. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
no
|
no
|
no
|
no
|
yes
|
no
|
Best Practices documentation
The best practices documentation covers high (design and architecture) and low level (best coding practices and operation) activities relating to the use of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker.
Capacity planning
Article provides guidance on how to estimate the message throughput for a message flow that does not yet exist.
Table 5. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Although this tool is based on WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1, it can be used to plan for the introduction of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5. Apply an uplift of approximately 20 percent for the message rates on z/OS. No adjustment is necessary for the other platforms.
Table 6. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
no
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Message flow design
Article provides guidance on how to design and implement efficient message flows. Although this article is based on WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1, the guidance equally applies to WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.
Table 7. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Tuning message throughput
Article provides guidance on how to improve message throughput with a message broker. Although this article is based on WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1 the guidance equally applies to WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.
Table 8. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Information provides guidance on how to maximize message throughput with the aggregation nodes in WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker and earlier releases.
Table 9. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Information provides guidance on the design of message flows for performance. Although this article is based on MQSeries Integrator V2, the guidance equally applies to WebSphere MQ Integrator V2.1 and WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5.
Table 10. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Article provides guidance on how many copies of a message flow to run in a message broker.
Table 11. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
Article outlines the use of IBM DB2 Universal Database for Linux, UNIX, and Windows by WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker V5. Most of the tuning and configuration information in this article also applies to WebSphere MQ Integrator Broker V2.1 and MQSeries System Integrator V2.
Table 12. Available platforms
|
Platform
|
AIX
|
HP-UX
|
Linux
|
Solaris
|
Windows 2000
|
z/OS
| |
Usable:
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
yes
|
no
|
Feedback
The documents, reports, and tools are produced to help you understand the performance characteristics of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker and to assist you with capacity planning. It is important that the reports and tools are effective in what they do and it is very useful to have feedback on the content and style of the information that is produced. Your comments, both positive and negative, are therefore welcome.
Your answers to the following questions are particularly valuable:
- What are your most common performance questions?
- Do the reports provide what is needed?
- Would you like to see any other aspects of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker performance discussed?
Please supply feedback to Tim Dunn (email address dunnt@uk.ibm.com) or to the Hursley Performance Group user ID (email address WMQPG@uk.ibm.com ).
About the author  | 
| | Tim Dunn is a Senior Performance Specialist with the WebSphere Business Integrator Message Broker performance team in IBM Hursley. Tim works with development in evaluating new releases of WebSphere Business Integrator Message Broker and with leading customers to provide consultancy on design, configuration, and tuning issues relating to WebSphere MQ Integrator. Tim has presented on WebSphere Business Integrator Message Broker performance in the United States and Europe. He has also authored a number of articles on improving the efficiency of a WebSphere MQ Integrator implementation. You can reach Tim Dunn at: dunnt@uk.ibm.com. |
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