Communications

IBM MQ MQI clients use MQI channels to communicate with the server.

A channel definition must be created at both the IBM MQ MQI client and server ends of the connection. How to create channel definitions is explained in Defining MQI channels.

The transmission protocols possible are shown in the following table:

1. LU6.2 is not supported on the following platforms:
   • Linux (POWER platform)
   • Linux (x86-64 platform)
   • Linux (zSeries s390x platform)

Transmission protocols - combination of IBM MQ MQI client and server platforms shows the possible combinations of IBM MQ MQI client and server platforms, using these transmission protocols.

An IBM MQ application on an IBM MQ MQI client can use all the MQI calls in the same way as when the queue manager is local. MQCONN or MQCONNX associates the IBM MQ application with the selected queue manager, creating a connection handle. Other calls using that connection handle are then processed by the connected queue manager. IBM MQ MQI client communication requires an active connection between the client and server, in contrast to communication between queue managers, which is connection-independent and time-independent.

The transmission protocol is specified by using the channel definition and does not affect the application. For example, a Windows application can connect to one queue manager over TCP/IP and to another queue manager over NetBIOS.

Performance considerations

The transmission protocol we use might affect the performance of the IBM MQ client and server system. For dial-up support over a slow telephone line, it might be advisable to use IBM MQ channel compression.