This is not an entry level exam like
Test 294. Many questions are practical in nature and you need working experience of atleast 2 years in MQ Admin/Development. I appeared for Test 296 and 297 in July 2003. Passed the 297 but failed in 296 by 1 point. I am preparing again to attend this month.
Following is a list which I think would be useful.
1. InterCommunication
Part1, Part2(Chap 4 is MOST IMP), Chapter 46 and Chapter 48
2.Application Programming Guide
Part1 - Most imp
Part2 - Must read once
Part3 - Overall compilation and Major differences in building on various platforms
3.Security
Part1 , Part2, skim through 11-15 , chap 15
4. Clusters
chap 1,2,4,5,7-9 Overall understanding of chap 10-12
5. Clients
Chapter1 and Part3
6. System Admin Guide
Part5, Part7 ( Chapter 21 and 23 are most imp in part7)
See the Red Book "MQSeries Backup and Recovery" for Part5.
7. Using
Java Overall understanding of how Java applications are written for MQ, difference between client and binding and JMS programs. Dont have to be detailed, but overview is required.
8.Programmable Command Formats and Administration Interface
INtroduction, Using and Definations
9. Event MOnitoring
Chapter 1-2, Skim through others
10.WebSphere MQ for z/OSConcepts and Planning Guide
Part1 and Part2 are must, others are recommended.( chapter 2,4 and 6 are most imp )
Check
IBM Support Packs for following
MD00 : MQSeries - Creating design standards for applications
MD01 : MQSeries - Standards and conventions
MD05 : MQSeries - Design considerations for large Clusters
MC07 : MQSeries link for R/3 - Configuration guide
MD08 : WebSphere MQ - Network Design Notation
MC6C : WebSphere MQ - How to Configure SSL
MS81 : IPT
Eventhough the list seems to be long, but this is the minimum I could make for 296. If you have worked, you will pass through many of these quickly.
I have a PDF from IBM MQseries Techincal Conference, but I cant find the URL for that. I am pasting the text below with some questions. NOte that it was for Test096 ( predecessor of 296 in previous version). There could be some differences due to versions.
Salt Lake City, Utah June 4 - 8, 2001
M09
MQSeries Certification Test 096
Review
Jill Cochran
RETURN TO INDEX
Test 096 Topics
Assessing MQSeries 5%
Positioning MQSeries 5%
MQSeries Concepts 5%
Creating a System Design using MQSeries 20%
MQSeries-related Topics 65%
(approximately 3%-5% per category)
Test 096 Objectives
-- Assessing MQSeries
Conduct a classic requirements study
Produce a requirements document, which includes
business logic requirements
Review the document with the customer and validate
acceptance of the document
Assess the suitability of MQSeries to meet the
customer requirements for business applications
Test 096 Objectives
-- Positioning MQSeries
Meet the customer needs for MQSeries positioning
information in the middleware landscape
Compare and contrast MQSeries with named
alternatives
Obtain customer executive endorsement of the use of
MQSeries
Test 096 Objectives
-- MQSeries Concepts
Demonstrate knowledge of basic concepts and function
of MQSeries and other related products
Provide education on message flows, structure and
MQSeries capabilities that support the customers
requirements
Identify a list of alternative sources of further
information about MQSeries and related products
Test 096 Objectives -- Creating a
System Design Using MQSeries
Participate in the overall architecture process to create
a System Design that meets the customer�s messaging
requirements, within the context of the total end-to-end
architecture
Produce a design document approved by the customer
Given the business requirement and project
constraints, develop deployment scenarios for
MQSeries
Knowing the customer�s business logic, existing
network topology and networking strategy, produce a
business logic design with supporting technical
documentation
Test 096 Objectives
-- MQSeries Related Topics
Given coding standards and design documentation,
perform a review of the MQSeries code
Based on the customer�s environment, applications and
network topology, determine the need for data
compression and data conversion
Knowing the customer applications and terms of
reference, produce a migration and deployment plan
Identify the need for MQSeries exits and make
recommendations for the use of exits to meet the stated
requirements
Determine the need and design appropriate messaging
standards
Test 096 Objectives -- MQSeries
Related Topics (continued)
Design intra-enterprise extendible naming standards to
meet the customer�s needs and MQSeries naming
requirements
Given a list of enterprises, design acceptable
inter-enterprise naming standards
Recommend the appropriate network protocol based
upon the advantages and disadvantages for MQSeries
and the advantages and disadvantages of the protocols
themselves
Lead the prototyping to a successful conclusion,
culminating in a production MQSeries solution
Test 096 Objectives -- MQSeries
Related Topics (continued)
Understand the need for MQSeries recovery and select
appropriate MQSeries and platform options
Develop a performance plan and validate application
performance
Based on the customer�s environment, the proposed
applications, and network topology, define the security
requirements
Define systems administration by providing
recommendations, handbooks and procedures to allow
the effective and efficient administration of MQSeries
Identify or design test scenarios that will validate the
MQSeries applications
Test 096 Objectives -- MQSeries
Related Topics (continued)
Given the application environment and performance
criteria, specify the use of triggering and trigger
monitors
Examine public domain sources for additional
information about MQSeries-related products and
services
Test 096 Education
A Technical Introduction to MQSeries
MQSeries Application Programming
MQSeries Connections for Domino
MQSeries System Administration
Also useful:
MQSeries for OS/390 System Administration
1. A customer with 24 sites across the U.S.A. has
engaged you to conduct a requirements study and
produce a MQSeries requirements document. A key
requirement is that there be minimal delay between the
time messages are placed on the transmission queue
at the sending site and the time the messages arrive at
the destination queue. Which network topology should
be recommended to fulfill this requirement?
A. dedicated queues
B. any-to-any connection
C. a hub and spoke connection
D. a parallel channel connection
2. An enterprise has a country branch network of 40
offices. Located in each office is a branch Intel PC Server
running applications using Windows NT and DB2/NT. Text
updates made to the DB2/NT tables are to be passed to a
central HP UNIX/Oracle data repository using MQSeries
messages. The central machine is used for data mining and
marketing analysis applications. Which statement describes
the use of MQSeries in this environment?
A. Each DB2 record update must be sent as a single MQ
message
B. MQSeries cannot act as a resource coordinator to ensure
updates to Oracle tables and MQSeries queues in the same
unit of work can be handled with a single commit
C. MQSeries can act as a resource coordinator to ensure updates
to DB2 tables and MQSeries queues in the same unit of work
can be handled with a single commit
D. Data conversion exits are needed to perform the data
conversion between the Windows NT and HP codepages
3. How does MQSeries reduce developer
communication programming effort? (Select 2
answers.)
A. It eliminates the need for application socket calls.
B. It allows sending and receiving applications to be
decoupled.
C. It implements a common application
programming interface.
D. It replaces communication logic within the
application.
4. Which MQSeries object stores messages
temporarily before they are sent to a remote queue?
A. a channel
B. a local queue
C. a transmission queue
D. a message channel agent
5. A client is re-engineering an order entry application
which queries a database at a remote warehouse location
to check inventory, a customer database for shipping
information, and a financial database for credit status as a
part of every order processed. The existing application uses
real time transaction processing for each query and the
existing application is required to do extensive processing if
one of the applications is not available. How could you use
MQSeries to simplify this environment? (Select 3 answers.)
A. Use MQSeries non-persistent messages
B. Use MQSeries to initiate serial queries
C. Use MQSeries for asynchronous processing
D. Use MQSeries to initiate parallel queries to all database
applications
E. Use MQSeries to transmit a datagram query to all database
applications
6. An company is intending to use MQSeries to distribute text
information from a central AIX/RS6000 to local site Intel
Servers running OS/2 or Windows NT. Each site will be
running a queue manager and has a direct channel to the
central AIX queue manager. The AIX application will be
sending the same data to each Intel machine. The size of the
data is variable, the average daily message size is 10KB but
may peak at 20MB. The maximum message size specified on
the queue managers and application queues is 1MB. The
application is able to allocate buffers supporting a maximum
data size of 10MB. Which MQSeries approaches should be
used? (Select 3 answers.)
A. Use MQMF_SEGMENT
B. Use MQMF_MSG_IN_GROUP
C. Send MQ messages each under a distributed Unit of Work
D. Send separate MQ messages under a single Unit of Work
E. Configure Channels with NonPersistentMsgSpeed set to
MQNPMS_FAST
7. Which functional capability is available to MQSeries
clients but is NOT available to MQSeries for Windows
leaf nodes?
A. application triggering
B. channel exit support
C. concurrent queue manager connections
D. queue manager connect calls of the form
MQCONN (*SALE)
8. Which are valid reasons to define parallel channels
between two queue managers? (Select 3 answers.)
A. to implement classes of service
B. to implement selective encryption
C. to improve channel performance
D. to separate batch and interactive messages
E. to fulfill a data conversion requirement
9. An organization is exploring the use of a central
name resolution repository to support its application
architecture. Which service is supported directly with
MQSeries?
A. DB2 Catalog tables
B. DNS Dynamic Name Service
C. MQSeries Installable Name service
D. Lotus Notes Name and Address Book
10. In an inter-enterprise network, 3 vendors have
queue managers with the identical name QM1. Which
standard will avoid problems caused by these duplicate
queue manager names in the network?
A. Modify the queue manager name in the QM.INI
file
B. Pass the fully qualified queue name in the user
data
C. Use reply queue alias and queue manager alias
definitions
D. Allow MQSeries to resolve this conflict with no
action required
11. Which is IBM�s recommended solution for
integrating Lotus Notes to legacy applications?
A. MQLink
B. MQLink EXTRA
C. LotusScript Extensions
D. MQ Enterprise Integrator
12. Which method is recommended to ensure
compressed data is decompressed while data which
was not compressed is not?
A. Define separate queues for compressed and
uncompressed messages
B. Define separate Message Channel Agents for
compressed and uncompressed messages
C. Identify compressed messages by inserting 0 in
the ninth byte of the data returned to the queue
manager
D. Identify compressed messages by inserting
COMPRESS in the first bytes of the message
13. An MQSeries application has created a queue
with the following conditions specified on the DEFINE
QLOCAL command:
DEFPRTY(0)
MSGDLVSQ(FIFO)
TRIGMPRI(5)
TRIPGTYPE(DEPTH)
TRIGDPTH(10)
TRIGGER
When will a trigger message be generated?
A. No trigger messages will be generated
B. When the queue contains 5 messages
C. When the queue contains 10 messages
D. When the queue contains 5 priority messages
E. When the queue contains 10 priority 5 messages
14. MQSeries on an MVS/ESA system is being
recovered from data collected by taking an MQSeries
full backup. Which best describes recovery in this
instance?
A. Pageset 0 is not required for recovery
B. A guaranteed point of consistency is obtained
C. The bootstrap dataset is not required for recovery
D. Pageset fragmented space is recovered during
backup
15. An MVS/ESA queue manager is configured with
the system parameter LOGLOAD=10000. What is
specified by this parameter?
A. The log files will be archived every 10000
seconds
B. Each primary linear file will contain 10000 log
records
C. MQSeries will write 10000 log records between
checkpoints
D. The MQSeries circular log will wrap after 10000
log records are written
16. Which message standards should be added when
an MQSeries network with MQSeries for AIX, Sun
Solaris, OS/2 Warp and Windows NT systems is
expanded to include MVS/ESA systems?
A. The message size cannot exceed 4 MB
B. Message segmentation must be activated
C. Reference messages are permitted for MVS/ESA
only
D. Messages over 4 MB require data compression
17. A network encompasses an Open VMS queue
manager communicating with a VMS(Alpha) queue
manager through an intermediate Windows NT node.
Which MQSeries-supported protocols should be
implemented to support this environment? (Select 2
answers.)
A. TCP
B. SPX
C. NetBIOS
D. DecNet
E. APPC
18. A customer is implementing a network consisting of an
MQSeries application interfacing with IMS via an
MQSeries-IMS bridge at an MVS/ESA central host. Windows
NT, OS/2 and Sun Solaris based MQSeries systems connect
to the central host via low speed Wide Area Network. Which
step must be taken to implement the security requirement
that MQSeries check the authorization of each entity to
determine if it is authorized to access the queue managers
resources?
A. Write an authorization service component on the MVS/ESA
system
B. Write an authorization service component on the OS/2 system
C. Write an authorization service component on the Sun Solaris
system
D. Write an authorization service component on the Windows NT
system
E. Write an authorization service component on the IMS bridge
19. Which tools can be used to test an MQSeries
interface to an MVS/CICS application? (Select 2
answers.)
A. TRACE and DEBUG
B. a CICS CEDF transaction
C. an API-crossing exit program
D. the Extended Program Model Debugger
20. A project is going to use MQSeries to connect
Internet clients to CICS legacy applications. The
Internet solution will use Java. The existing CICS
transactions cannot be modified to incorporate
MQSeries API calls. Which component should be
developed once and reused?
A. a Java object for the OTMA
B. a Java object for the MQMD
C. a Java object for the MQSAPH
D. a Java object for the MQCIH
21. Which are the common uses for the channel send
and receive exits on an MQSeries client? (Select 2
answers.)
A. encrypting and decrypting user data
B. converting user data from ASCII to EBCDIC
C. exchanging user authentication information
D. compressing and decompressing data in a
message
22. Which exit should be used to encrypt messages
sent over an MQSeries network?
A. a security exit
B. a message exit
C. a message retry exit
D. a message encryption exit
23. A large distribution company is re-engineering its
warehouse system using MQSeries. The application
runs on as MVS/ESA system and has local and
distributed DB2 databases. The application receives an
order then sends messages to check customer
information, check inventory, create shipping
instructions, and prepare an invoice. When analyzing
the MQSeries statistics you discover the high number
of read log requests were satisfied from an archive data
set. Which steps could possible resolve this problem?
A. Increase the buffer pool size
B. Increase the active log file size
C. Increase the number of primary logs
D. Increase the number of storage classes
24. When discussing MQSeries fundamental
concepts for an audience of application programmers
and systems analysts, which analogy would be
appropriate when describing the MQSeries basic
concept of applications communicating by putting items
on a queue and getting items from the queue?
A. creating a transaction
B. issuing a subroutine call
C. creating or processing an interrupt
D. writing or reading a record on a batch file
25. Which areas should always be covered in an
MQSeries prototype plan? (Select 2 answers.)
A. total application functionality
B. any-to-any network capability
C. queue to queue message flow
D. each interface between an application and
MQSeries
E. application user interface
26. Given an MQSeries program represented by the
following pseudo code:
line 1 MQCONN
line 2 MQOPEN
line 3 DO while �Messages Available�
line 4 MQGET
line 5 SQL UPDATE
line 6 END
line 7 MQCLOSE
line 8 MQCMIT
line 9 MQDISC
Which statement can be omitted and still preserve the
integrity of the program module?
A. line 1
B. line 2
C. line 7
D. none
27. An operator has been alerted to a potential
problem by a QUEUE_HIGH event. Which is an
appropriate first step to diagnose this potential
problem?
A. Stop the queue manager
B. Change the queue to PUT_INHIBIT
C. Issue a DISPLAY QUEUE[NAME] IPROCS
OPROCS command
D. Issue a MQSET command to increase the depth
of the queue
Answers
1 - B
2 - C
3 B,C
4 C
5 ACD
6 ABC
7 ACD
8 ABD
9 C
10 B
11 D
12 C
13 A
14 A
15 B
16 A
17 AE
18 A
19 BC
20 D
21 AD
22 B
23 B
24 D
25 CD
26 C
27 B
Hope this help....
Thanks
