Plan for IBM MQ in containers

When planning for IBM MQ in containers, consider the support that IBM MQ provides for various architectural options, such as how high availability is managed, and how to secure your queue managers.

About this task

Before we plan the IBM MQ in containers architecture, we should familiarize yourself with both the basic IBM MQ concepts (see IBM MQ Technical overview) as well as basic Kubernetes/OpenShift concepts (see OpenShift Container Platform architecture).

• Choose how to use IBM MQ in containers
  There are multiple options for using IBM MQ in containers: we can choose to use pre-packaged certified containers, or we can build your own images and deployment code.
• Support for IBM MQ Operator and certified containers
  The IBM MQ certified containers are only supported when deployed using the IBM MQ Operator on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
• Support for building your own IBM MQ container images and charts
  Information to consider if we are using containers on a Linux system.
• Storage considerations for IBM MQ Advanced certified container
  
• High availability for IBM MQ in containers
  We have two main choices for high availability with IBM MQ Advanced certified container: Multi-instance queue manager (which is an active-standby pair, using a shared, networked file system) and Single resilient queue manager (which offers a simple approach for HA using networked storage).
• User authentication and authorization for IBM MQ in containers
  IBM MQ can be configured to use LDAP users and groups for authorization. This is the recommended approach for the IBM MQ Advanced certified container.

Parent topic: IBM MQ in containers