MQ Hardware and Software Requirements

Hardware Requirements

• Servers. The Recovery Kit requires two or more servers configured in accordance with the requirements described in the SIOS Protection Suite Installation Guide. See the Linux Configuration Table for supported Linux distributions.

• Data Storage. The WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit can be used in conjunction both with shared storage and with replicated storage provided by the DataKeeper product. It can also be used with network-attached storage (NAS).

Software Requirements

• SPS Software. You must install the same version of SPS software and any patches on each server.

• LifeKeeper WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit. Version 7.5.1 or later of the WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit is required for systems running WebSphere MQ v7.1 or later.

• LifeKeeper IP Recovery Kit. You must have the same version of the LifeKeeper IP Recovery Kit on each server.

• IP Network Interface. Each server requires at least one Ethernet TCP/IP-supported network interface. In order for IP switchover to work properly, user systems connected to the local network should conform to standard TCP/IP specifications.

Note: Even though each server requires only a single network interface, you should use multiple interfaces for a number of reasons: heterogeneous media requirements, throughput requirements, elimination of single points of failure, network segmentation and so forth.

• TCP/IP Software. Each server also requires the TCP/IP software.

• WebSphere MQ Software. IBM WebSphere MQ must be ordered separately from IBM. See the SPS Release Notes for supported WebSphere MQ versions. The WebSphere MQ Software must be installed on each server of the cluster prior to installing the WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit. The following WebSphere MQ packages must be installed to successfully install the WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit:
  
  MQSeriesServer, MQSeriesSamples, MQSeriesClient, MQSeriesRuntime, MQSeriesSDK
  
  Beginning with IBM WebSphere MQ Version 7.0.1 Fix Pack 6, a new feature was introduced allowing multiple versions of WebSphere MQ to be installed and run on the same server (e.g. MQ Versions 7.0.1 Fix Pack 6 and 7.1). This feature, known as multi-instance support, is now supported starting with version 9.0.1 of the WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit. Protecting multiple queue managers within a single IBM WebSphere MQ installation version, protection of queue managers from multiple IBM WebSphere MQ installation versions, as well as the use the DataPath parameter in the mqs.ini file introduced as part of the multi-instance feature are all now supported in this version of the recovery kit.

• Optional C Compiler. The WebSphere MQ Recovery Kit contains a modified amqsget0.c sample program from the WebSphere MQ samples package. This program has been modified to work with a timeout of 0 seconds instead of the default 15 seconds. It is used to perform PUT/GET tests for the queue manager. This program is compiled during RPM installation and therefore a C compiler must be installed and must be located in the PATH of the “root” user.

• Syslog.pm. If you want to use syslog logging for WebSphere MQ resources, the Syslog.pm PERL module must be installed. This module is part of the standard PERL distribution and is not required to be installed separately.