Approaches to message monitoring

There are various reasons for determining a message route as described in How activities are used. Depending on the reason for determining a message route, there are two general approaches that we can use, as follows:

Using activity information recorded for a trace-route message

Trace-route messages are used to record activity information for a specific purpose. They can be used to determine configuration issues with a queue manager network, or used to determine the last known location of a message. If a trace-route message is generated to determine the last known location of a message that did not reach its intended destination, it can mimic the original message. This gives the trace-route message the greatest chance of following the route the original message took. For information on how to mimic a message, see Mimicking a message.

The WebSphere MQ display route application can generate trace-route messages.

Using activity information recorded for the original message

Any message can be enabled for activity recording and have activity information recorded on its behalf. If a message doesn't reach its intended destination then the recorded activity information can be used to determine the last known location of the message. By using activity information from the original message, the most accurate possible message route can be determined, leading to the last known location. To use this approach, the original message must be enabled for activity recording.

Warning:

It is recommended that you do not enable all messages in a queue manager network for activity recording. Messages enabled for activity recording can have many activity reports generated on their behalf. If every message in a queue manager network is enabled for activity recording, the queue manager network traffic can increase many times over.