When MQSeries began to enter the mainframe world it was almost impossible to monitor who was using a queue at a given point in time. When the year 2000 came a version of MQ was released which made it possible to monitor the users of a queue, but of course this function was hidden away in some remote corner of the product. I will now reveil the location of this remote corner.

You start your search by entering the MQ TSO/ISPF online interface. The standard command supplied by IBM is called TSO MQM, but at your installation the systems programmers may have given it another name. Ensure that the copyright notice in the bottom of the entry panel refers to a year of 2000 or later. Otherwise this tip will not work.

Now you enter the appropriate data to display the local queue that you are interested in. Remember to place a * at the end of the name or else you will be guided directly into the definition panel where the information you are looking for doesn't appear. When you have pressed the Enter key you will get a display of a list panel containing your queue. Now you press F11 and a panel almost the same as the previous one is appearing. This panel contains the current queue depth for the queue(s). Press F11 again to enter the remote corner.

At the remote corner panel there is at least two lines of information for each queue. First line contains Queue name, Disposition and Access which isn't very interesting. Second line contains Application name, ASID, Application information and User ID. Application name contains the name of the address space using the queue. Bingo. If the text "CICS" appears to the right of the address space name, then the Application information contains the name of the CICS transaction using the queue and the number of the CICS task executing the transaction. This is just fantastic.

Please note that the same queue name appears once for every user of the queue. You might easily have many users of the same queue even from the same address space. The number of times the queue appears is the same number of times that an OPEN of the queue has been issued. When the queue is closed the equivalent occurence in list will disappear.

When you are viewing a list of MQ ressources in MQM, you have to press F5 to get the newest status for the displayed ressources. When you want to return to the previous panel you must press F12. If you hit F3 you are returned directly to the MQM entry panel.