Managing Physical Destination Disk Utilization

Because of the way message storage is structured in a file-based persistent data store (see File-Based Persistence Properties), disk space can become fragmented over time, resulting in inefficient utilization of the available resources. Message Queue’s Command utility (imqcmd) provides subcommands for monitoring disk utilization by physical destinations and for reclaiming unused disk space when utilization drops.

To monitor a physical destination’s disk utilization, use the imqcmd metrics dst subcommand:

   imqcmd metrics dst  -m dsk  -t destType  -n destMame

This displays the total number of bytes of disk space reserved for the destination’s use, the number of bytes currently in use to hold active messages, and the percentage of available space in use (the disk utilization ratio). For example, the following command displays disk utilization information for the queue destination curlyQueue:

   imqcmd metrics dst  -m dsk  -t q  -n curlyQueue  -u admin

Example 7–5 shows an example of the resulting output.

Example 7–5 Destination Disk Utilization Listing

--------------------------------------
Reserved   Used      Utilization Ratio
--------------------------------------
804096     675533    84
1793024    1636222   91
2544640    2243808   88

The disk utilization pattern depends on the characteristics of the messaging application using a particular physical destination. Depending on the flow of messages into and out of the destination and their relative size, the amount of disk space reserved might grow over time. If messages are produced at a higher rate than they are consumed, free records should generally be reused and the utilization ratio should be on the high side. By contrast, if the rate of message production is comparable to or lower than the consumption rate, the utilization ratio will likely be low.

As a rule, you want the reserved disk space to stabilize and the utilization ratio to remain high. If the system reaches a steady state in which the amount of reserved disk space remains more or less constant with utilization above 75%, there is generally no need to reclaim unused disk space. If the reserved space stabilizes at a utilization rate below 50%, you can use the imqcmd compact dst subcommand to reclaim the disk space occupied by free records:

   compact dst  [-t destType  -n destName]

This compacts the file-based data store for the designated physical destination. If no destination type and name are specified, all physical destinations are compacted.

You must pause a destination (with the imqcmd pause subcommand) before compacting it, and resume it (with imqcmd resume) afterward (see Pausing and Resuming a Physical Destination):

   imqcmd pause dst    -t q  -n curlyQueue  -u admin
   imqcmd compact dst  -t q  -n curlyQueue  -u admin
   imqcmd resume dst   -t q  -n curlyQueue  -u admin

If a destination’s reserved disk space continues to increase over time, try reconfiguring its maxNumMsgs, maxBytesPerMsg, maxTotalMsgBytes, and limitBehavior properties (see Physical Destination Properties).