Subscribing to application activity trace information

From IBM MQ Version 9.0, we can dynamically subscribe to application activity trace information as an alternative to collecting the information through queue manager level configuration.

About this task

Application activity trace traces the behavior of an application and provides a detailed view of the parameters that are used by an application as it interacts with IBM MQ resources. It also shows the sequence of MQI calls issued by an application.

Before IBM MQ Version 9.0, application activity trace is collected and read by writing activity trace PCF messages to the system queue SYSTEM.ADMIN.TRACE.ACTIVITY.QUEUE. For more information, see Configure central collection of application activity trace information.

In addition to writing trace data to the system queue, IBM MQ Version 9.0 introduces an alternate method of subscribing to activity trace data, written to special IBM MQ system topics.

Note that IBM MQ Version 9.0 does not use exits for this purpose. If we have previously used exits to trace application activity, you must switch to using the new method for collecting application activity trace.

Creating a subscription enables activity trace. You do not have to set queue manager or application attributes as for central collection of trace data. However, any explicit blocking of activity trace by disabling trace at queue manager or application levels also blocks activity trace from being delivered to any matching subscriptions.