Tag Archives: MQTC

Education Courses Prize Draw at MQTCv2.0.1.7

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At the recent MQTC Conference, MQGem ran a Prize Draw where one lucky entrant would win access to five free education courses by MQGem which will be going live in November. These courses can be done by the winning entrant or any member of his company, so if he has any new members in his department that can benefit from some IBM MQ education, they could use them.

The draw was made at lunchtime on the final day of the conference and the lucky winner was John Edelmann from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

The prize draw winner

Morag Hughson (MQGem) with John Edelmann, the prize draw winner.

John will receive access to his five free courses sometime around the beginning of November 2017 when the MQGem Education courses go live. Look out for further announcements on here if you’re interested in taking some online education courses yourself.

MQGem at MQTCv2.0.1.7

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We’ve just finished a great three days at the MQTC v2.0.1.7 conference in Sandusky, Ohio. MQTC is the only conference dedicated to IBM MQ education, and was again very well attended by speakers, sponsors and attendees. Both Paul and Morag gave technical presentations as we mentioned in an earlier blog post.

For the first time in the 5-year run of this conference, we started the conference with an unopposed session, “What’s New in IBM Messaging”, before splitting into 5 tracks as in previous years. Roger Lacroix, who is the founder of the conference, made some opening remarks prior to that session, and then took his first ever selfie with the audience!

MQGem was a Gold Sponsor of the conference, and so also had a couple of vendor presentation sessions which were presented by Paul; the first on Monday, was about our MQ administration products, MO71 and MQSCX. Then on Wednesday, the second presentation was about our Message Manipulation products, MQEdit and QLOAD.

In the lab room this year, complementing the z/OS platform lab exercises provided by Lyn Elkins and Mitch Johnson, we made freely available our soon-to-be-released education courses. These were available for those people wanting to learn things on the distributed platforms, and a number of people tried them out. Our prize draw this year was to win access to five free courses, when they go live in around a months time. It was very heartening to see people learn new things while doing the courses, and good feedback was received on the exercises.

We also had a booth in the Sponsor Pavilion on Monday and Tuesday evening, where we gave personalised demos of any of the products to attendees who came by, gave out product brochures, free mouse mats, and beer koozies, and collected entries for our prize draw.

Yet again, the Kalahari Resort has done this conference proud, and huge thanks go to Capitalware for putting on a great three days.

Other blog posts about the conference:

Looking forward to MQTCv2.0.1.7

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MQTC IconIt’s nearly September, and in less than four weeks is the MQTC conference in Sandusky, Ohio.

MQTC – the only conference dedicated to IBM MQ – takes place from September 25 to September 27. There is a full schedule of technical sessions as well as a number of vendor sessions. There’s also lots of information about the conference on the CapitalWare Blog, and you can follow the twitter hashtag #MQTC2017.

MQGem Software is a Gold Sponsor of the conference, so come and find us in the evening Sponsor Pavilion, held in the Zambezi room, on Monday and Tuesday, and we can demonstrate any of the MQGem products to you and you can enter our prize draw. Or just grab a beer from the bar and come and say “Hello”.

Paul Clarke and Morag Hughson will be there from MQGem Software, doing a number of technical sessions:-

Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Introduction to the MQI
Morag Hughson
Monday 1:00pm Leopardwood; Tuesday 2:30pm Aloeswood
Abstract: This entry level session will teach the basics of the beautifully simple MQ API – the MQI. You’ll have heard many describe how writing an application for MQ is very simple, just MQPUT a message, or MQGET a message. Come to this session and learn it for yourself. Example code in C and COBOL will be used, and a live demonstration using an API Exerciser will show how some of the input and output fields operate.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Learn to code the MQ Message Property MQI calls
Morag Hughson
Monday 3:50pm Rosewood; Wednesday 9:50am Leopardwood
Abstract: This session will introduce you to the MQI message property calls. You’ll learn how to create message handles, and use them to populate, or read message properties on an IBM MQ message. Example code in C and COBOL will be used, and a live demonstration using an API Exerciser will show how some of the input and output fields operate.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Using Application Activity Trace
Morag Hughson
Tuesday 9:50am Aloeswood; Wednesday 3:50pm Aloeswood
Abstract: Application Activity Trace is a feature of IBM MQ that allows you to discover exactly what the applications connected to your queue manager are doing. You can see the object names that they open and the options they use on the various verbs they call. You can find out about the size, persistence, priority and more, of your messages. Please note, this feature is only available on the Distributed platforms.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Introduction to MQ Clients
Paul Clarke
Tuesday 8:30am Aloeswood; Wednesday 1:00pm Leopardwood
Abstract: This session introduces the IBM MQ clients: what they are, on which platforms they run, and how customers use them in their applications. We will mainly focus on the ‘C’ IBM MQ MQI client, but will also introduce the Java and XMS clients. The session will also discuss a number of basic implementation considerations, including when it may be appropriate to use each client and describe new client features. The intent is to familiarize you with the things necessary to succeed with a simple IBM MQ client implementation.

Paul will also be giving two vendor sessions:-

Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 The MQGems – MQ Administration tools from MQGem Software
Paul Clarke
Monday 11:15am Rosewood
Abstract: In this session, Paul Clarke, founder and CEO of MQGem Software, will take you through the administration tools that MQGem produces. This includes MO71 – our GUI administrator for MQ and MQSCX – a huge improvement on MQSC. The presentation will be largely based on demonstrations of the tools.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 The MQGems – Message manipulation tools from MQGem Software
Paul Clarke
Wednesday 11:15am Leopardwood
Abstract: In this session, Paul Clarke, founder and CEO of MQGem Software, will take you through the message manipulation tools that MQGem produces. This include MQEdit – our GUI Message editor for MQ, and QLOAD – the load/unload messages tool. The presentation will be largely based on demonstrations of the tools.

We look forward to seeing you there!

MQEDIT Prize Draw at MQTCv2.0.1.6

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At the recent MQTC Conference, MQGem ran a Prize Draw where one lucky entrant would win an Enterprise licence to use MQEdit for free for a year. An Enterprise licence allows your whole company to use the product worldwide.

The draw was made at lunchtime on the final day of the conference and the lucky winner was Gary Schmincke from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

The prize draw winner

Gary Schmincke, The prize draw winner, with Morag Hughson (MQGem)

Gary will receive his licence file sometime before the end of January 2017 when the free beta period expires. Currently, EVERYONE can use it for free. Just go to the website and download a copy to try, no sign-up, no obligation to buy.

MQGem at MQTCv2.0.1.6

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MQTC Sponsors

MQTC Sponsors

We’ve just finished three days in Sandusky, Ohio at this years MQTC Conference, the best, and only dedicated conference for IBM MQ Technical Education.

It was great to see so much interest in MQ at the conference, with numbers up from last years attendance, and more vendors in the sponsors pavilion than in previous years. Paul and Morag both gave technical presentions as we mentioned in an earlier blog post.

MQGem was a Gold Sponsor of the conference, and so also had a couple of vendor presentation sessions which were presented by Paul; the first on Monday, about our new product, MQEDIT, a live parsing MQ message editor; and the second on Wednesday, about our other three products, MQSCX, MO71 and QLOAD.

Paul presenting

Paul presenting the MQGem editor – MQEDIT

MQGem also had a booth in the vendor pavillion on Monday and Tuesday evening, where we gave personalised demos of any of the products to attendees who came by, gave out product brochures and free mouse mats, and collected entries for our prize draw to win an MQEDIT 1-year Enterprise licence. We were very pleased with the interest in our products shown by the attendees that visited the booth, and Paul spent a lot of time demonstrating the many features of all our products.

MQGem Product Brochures
MQGem Mouse mats
MQGem’s Booth at the Sponsor Pavillion (Expo)

It was great to catch up with many friends and customers that we hadn’t met face-to-face for a while.

Yet again, the Kalahari Resort has done this conference proud, and huge thanks go to Capitalware for putting on a great three days.

Session Directory

Which sessions would you go to?

Next years conference, MQTCv2.0.1.7 has already been announced for 25-27th September and we hope to see many more people attending this marvellous event next year. MQGem hopes to be able to support MQTC again next year.

Other blog posts about the conference:

Looking forward to MQTCv2.0.1.6

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MQTC IconIt’s September, and at the end of this month is the MQTC conference in Sandusky, Ohio.

MQTC – the only conference dedicated to IBM MQ – takes place from September 26 to September 28. There is a full schedule of technical sessions as well as a number of vendor sessions. There’s also lots of information about the conference on the CapitalWare Blog, and you can follow the twitter hashtag #MQTC2016.

MQGem Software is a Gold Sponsor of the conference, so come and find us in the evening Sponsor Pavilion, held in the Zambezi room, on Monday and Tuesday, and we can demonstrate any of the MQGem products to you and you can enter our prize draw. Or just grab a beer from the bar and come and say “Hello”.

Paul Clarke and Morag Hughson will be there from MQGem Software, doing a number of technical sessions:-

Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Introduction to the MQI
Morag Hughson
Monday 8:30am Leopardwood; Wednesday 9:50am Salon F
Abstract: This entry level session will teach the basics of the beautifully simple MQ API – the MQI. You’ll have heard many describe how writing an application for MQ is very simple, just MQPUT a message, or MQGET a message. Come to this session and learn it for yourself. Example code in C and COBOL will be used, and a live demonstration using an API Exerciser will show how some of the input and output fields operate.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Securing your z/OS Queue Manager
Morag Hughson
Monday 2:30pm Rosewood; Tuesday 2:30pm Aloeswood
Abstract: This session looks at how security facilities are provided in IBM MQ for z/OS. It will provide an introduction to IBM MQ for z/OS Security, looking at, what security is available, how it is activated/deactivated, what types of resources can be protected and an insight as to how IBM MQ for z/OS determines which userids it uses for the checks it performs. IBM MQ V8 introduced a number of new security features and many of these were just as applicable on z/OS as other platforms, so we will show how these features work on z/OS, and what error messages to look out for when using them.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Authentication in MQ
Morag Hughson
Tuesday 9:50am Leopardwood; Wednesday 1:00pm Salon E
Abstract: Over the last few releases of MQ, there have been a number of security features added that provide authentication features. This session illustrates all those features and how they work together. This session will cover the use of SSL/TLS on channels (and some recent changes in this area in MQ V8); the security exit facility which is still available although some of the common uses for it are now built into the MQ product; the use of CHLAUTH rules (added in MQ V7.1 and enhanced in MQ V8) and the MQ V8 feature Connection Authentication, which allows the validation of user ID and password from an application at connect time.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 Introduction to MQ Channels
Paul Clarke
Monday 1:00pm Rosewood; Tuesday 4:00pm Aloeswood
Abstract: This entry level session describes how IBM MQ moves messages around your network of queue managers. The various concepts of remote messaging are introduced and the session shows how the various components fit together. Attendees learn the basic IBM MQ configuration necessary to have application messages moved from one queue manager to another.

Paul will also be giving two vendor sessions:-

Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 The MQGems – tools from MQGem Software
Paul Clarke
Wednesday 11:15am Salon F
Abstract: In this session, Paul Clarke, founder and CEO of MQGem Software, will take you through the tools that MQGem produces. This includes MO71 – our GUI administrator for MQ, MQSCX – a huge improvement on MQSC, and QLOAD – the load/unload messages tool. The presentation will include demonstrations of some of the above.
Title:
Speaker:
Scheduled:		 What’s New from MQGem Software – New Message Editor Product
Paul Clarke
Monday 11:15am Rosewood
Abstract: In this session, Paul Clarke, founder and CEO of MQGem Software, will tell you all about a new product developed by MQGem Software, MQEDIT – a new live parsing message editor. The editor is still in Beta, so this is the ideal opportunity for you to come along and shape the direction of its development. The session will be largely demonstration based, so come along and see the editor in action. You can also enter a prize draw to win a free one-year licence!

We look forward to seeing you there!

MQGem at Capitalware’s MQ Technical Conference v2.0.1.4

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MQTC 2014 Sponsor sign

Conference sponsors

MQGem Software was a Silver Sponsor of the Capitalware MQ Technical Conference this September, in Sandusky, Ohio. Everyone agreed that the conference was a great success, with the attendees commenting on the wide variety and depth of the technical information provided. Not only that, the catering was impressive – we were continually having cakes and cookies thrust at us during the breaks! The MQ community owes a debt of thanks to Roger Lacroix and his team at Capitalware, and MQGem would like to extend its thanks for the effort that they put into making the event such a success.

Paul Clarke was there as a speaker on a number of IBM MQ subjects, including channels and clients, and also presenting a vendor session about the MQGem tools.

MQTC 2014 MQGem USB Key

MQGem USB Key from MQTC 2014 Conference

In the vendor session, Paul gave out MQGem USB keys which contained the latest versions of MO71 and MQSCX, along with a trial license for the conference attendees to use for one month after the end of the conference. If you’d like to try out the products yourself, but you weren’t at the conference, you can download the programs from the MQGem website, and email support@mqgem.com to request a trial license.

The sessions were very well attended, and there were only just enough USB keys to go round – next year more keys will be needed since the attendance at this conference is clearly growing.

The session presented some of the less well known features of MO71, those features that have previously resulted in exclamations of, “I didn’t know it could do that!” For example, lots of people still haven’t realised that MO71 can show the results of a list of objects from multiple queue managers in a single dialog; for instance, you could look at the current depths of all your dead letter queues in one dialog.

Another feature that caused a lot of excitement and questions was pre-defined dialogs. This is the feature that allows you to preset all the aspects of a display window and invoke it with a single click, or even choose to have it appear at startup. As an example, you could pre-define a dialog that shows all the transmission queues with messages on them; or show all the queues that are more than half full; or all the channels that are retrying.

A number of the features were demonstrated in a real hands on session, for example the new MQSCX control language, showing how you could easily collate the responses back from the command server, into a single sorted list.

I’m sure everyone attending sincerely hopes that MQTC becomes a fixed date in the MQ calendar, and that it continues to go from strength to strength. MQGem would recommend anyone looking for MQ Education to seriously consider this conference which offers excellent value for money. Not only were there 85 technical sessions, but also ample opportunity to talk to the MQ experts from IBM.

MQGem looks forward to supporting the conference in the future.

Other people’s Blog Posts about this conference