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z/IRIS creates MQ traces for application observability using SMF record type 116 subtype 1 records. Each MQ trace details the performance and resource consumption, grouped by each queue or topic used by the task.

Where possible, z/IRIS will provide additional identifiers that inform observability platforms which distributed, or cloud application initiated the MQ task workload on z/OS so that users gain end-to-end visibility into how IBM MQ on mainframe is utilized by business applications.

Distributed Traces

Abstract of an MQ for z/OS trace

Task / Thread Identification parent span

The parent span identifies the task, the MQ Queue Manager, connection and channels used as well as mainframe-specific identifiers for the unit of work.

MQ object child span

Each child span identifies the MQ object, the duration for which the MQ task was connected to the object, and signals if any errors were detected by the queue manager during processing. The resource attributes describe the MQ object, the MQ subsystem and the MQ resources that were used. The trace attributes provide a breakdown of the MQ API calls the task executed against the MQ object, the processor utilization and internal latency incurred due to logging.

To see all attributes provided with MQ spans, see MQ Spans .

IBM MQ Workflow Tracing

Distributed MQ to CICS workflow support in z/IRIS

Distributed MQ to MQ z/OS workflow BETA

z/IRIS correlates MQ for z/OS spans to traces from distributed and cloud services so that users get visibility into how MQ for z/OS is used by business applications. To activate this correlation, refer to Distributed MQ to MQ for z/OS Interceptor for detailed instructions.

After activating the interceptor, MQ for z/OS spans will be appended to logically related MQ traces enabling users to identify which business transaction consume z/OS MQ resources as well as monitor and analyse MQ for z/OS performance, service level indicators and resource consumption.

Otel distributed trace in Jaeger contains MQ and CICS spans from z/IRIS

MQ to CICS Workflow BETA

With the built-in z/IRIS Mainframe Workflow Tracing feature, users see end-to-end workflow of IBM MQ and CICS transactions. This enables DevOps teams to cut through software complexity using observability to identify issues in complex and critical business services. With z/IRIS, users can identify whether MQ or CICS may be the root-cause of an incident, as well as automatically detect changes in performance and resource consumption.

IBM MQ → CICS Transaction workflow in Jaeger

IBM MQ → CICS Transaction workflow in Datadog

MQ for z/OS Metrics

Streamed Metrics are created from SMF Type 115 Records. Metrics are streamed either directly from IronTap or received by an OpenTelemetry (OTEL) Contrib Collector for further transformation by 3rd party vendor pipeline processors and exporters. The OTEL Collector enables immense flexibility to ingest and export telemetry in one or many different formats as required by the target observability platforms.

Metric measurements

  • MQ Queue Manager Metrics
    A collection of measurements that depicts the health of the MQ Queue Managers running on z/OS systems. These metrics focus on resource constraints that typically impact the performance of the MQ subsystem and impact end-to-end application performance and availability.

Sample of the MQ Queue Manager Metrics in a Grafana Dashboard

>> MQ Metrics Streaming
>> Grafana Dashboards