Topology

The Topology features allows you to view an animated graphic representation of queue relationships.  The object structure and hierarchy are displayed.  The below figure is an example:

How to Display a Topology

1. From a queue manager or node pop-up menu (for IBM MQ, TIBCO EMS or Apache Kafka), select Show Topology.  Please note, you can select multiple queue managers belonging to the same node.
   
   The Topology SVG window opens. 
   
2. From the Show References drop-down, select the type of references (Related, All or Invalid) the topology should display.
3. Use the Name Mask field to filter the topology by the lowest hierarchical object level.  The default value of this field is an asterisk “*”, which means everything.  You can search using the asterisk, QAB* or enter the object’s exact name.  In the example below QABC was entered within the Name Mask field to display this exact queue.
4. Use the Unreferenced checkbox to specify whether or not to display unreferenced objects.
5. Click the blue Set and show topology button after you have specified your options to display the topology diagram and animation.  The objects are signified with A (alias queue), L (local queue), R (remote queue) or T (topics) and the number of queues or topics.  The default configuration for topology is to show queue manager relationships, including remote queues, transmission queues, channels and clusters.  The key element is to verify setup and discover inconsistencies.  For example, in the diagram below, a remote queue “aname” is actually a point to a remote queue on the local queue manager.

7. Hover over the topology circles to view object names. 
   
8. Zoom in or out by scrolling your mouse scroll button or by dragging the size slider located on the left side of the window.  Change a topology’s location on the screen by clicking the topology and drag and dropping it to a new position.
9. Click the refresh button or Set and Show Topology to refresh the topology. 

Another topology view is All.  This includes all local queues whether they are in a relation or not.  To reduce the amount of data presented, this only includes queue objects with messages by default (see exception in animation below).

Export to PDF

You can click the Export Topology to PDF button to download a PDF of the topology.  The downloaded file will have the name of the object for which the topology has been created, time generated, and reference type.  The PDF page will adapt its size to the displayed data, but will not exceed 9000x9000 (maximum topology size).  Please note that downloading a PDF file does not require the topology to be displayed in the current SVG window.

Diagram Options

To customize the diagram, click the Options button located at the top-left of the Topology SVG window.  The Topology animation options window opens. 

The topology diagram data can be animated over a specified time range. This extracts data from the IBM MQ statistics and can take some time to complete.  To activate, enable Animate Queue Statistics.

Use the following drop-down menu options to customize your selection:

• Time frame:  Specify the date range for the animation.  Select from Last hour, Last 3 hours, Last 6 hours or Range.
• Animated Queue Property:  Specify what to animate.  Select from Max. queue depth, Puts count (messages arrived), Put get delta (difference between the messages read and the messages arrived).
• Animation Speed:  Specify the speed for the animation.  Choose from Fast (6 seconds), Normal (12 seconds) or Slow (20 seconds).

Enable the Show current queue depth option to display queue depth values when animation is not active.

The Maximum Topology Object Amount field is used to determine the maximum amount of topology objects to represent.  The default value is 1000.  The Maximum Topology Child Node values Amount field is used to determine the maximum number of queues to represent in the topology.  The default value is 500.

Click Ok to save your changes.  Back on the Topology SVG window, click the Play button  to start the animation.

If the graph to be generated includes more objects than the specified Maximum Topology Object Amount, an error message will display and the graph is not generated.

If All is selected from the Show References dropdown, the topology will not represent queues if the queues amount in the queue manager exceeds the Maximum Topology Child Node values Amount (specified on the Topology Options screen).  These queues are displayed in an additional view which is launched by clicking the Additional Topology Views button. In the new window that opens, select the manager, object, and diagram page number for which you want to view the results.

All overflowed objects will display in multiple graphs (each graph will have a maximum of 100 queue objects), with each graph displayed on its own page.  To navigate between the pages, use the list on the left side of the window or the arrow buttons located above the graph.