Added a new link

I just added a new link under "Useful Links" to the IBM Service Management for System z community. This link will direct you a variety of resources about System z and the management of System z. You can read postings from IBM experts, such as my friend and colleague, Wayne Bucek. Wayne is an expert in MQ, and you can check out his Wayne_Z_World posts on MQ management and best practices.

Are you ready for V4.2?

OMEGAMON XE for CICS is the last of the bunch to release a V4.2 version, and that version is targeted to go GA in December of '09. We're almost through the month of November, so that means that once OMEGAMON CICS is available all the core OMEGAMONs (z/OS, DB2, CICS, IMS, Storage, Networks) will be available in a V4.2 version.

So, if you haven't done so already, now is the time to start planning for that migration to V4.2. Each of the OMEGAMONs has new feature/function in V4.2, so there is considerable benefit to going to the new versions. And that's true both for 3270 users, along with those users that use the TEP (aka the Tivoli Enterprise Portal).

With apologies to Mel Brooks fans, all I can say is "you do that 4.2 that you do so well"!!

OMEGAMON XE for IMS V4.2 provides better tracing

One of the major enhancements to OMEGAMON XE for IMS V4.2 is a much more robust trace facility. OMEGAMON now has a high performance capture facility, Near Term History function to show the most recent IMS transactions, and detailed tracing with the ability to drill down for detail. The screen shot here shows an example of the trace, and how you can hit F11 for more detail for a given call.

ITM 6.2.2 fixpack available

For those users who have ventured on to ITM 6.2.2, a brand new fixpack is now available.
IBM Tivoli Monitoring 6.2.2 Fix Pack 1 (6.2.2-TIV-ITM-FP0001) can now be had. The following is the URL to get it.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24025028&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSZ8F3&mync=R

This is a cumulative fix pack for IBM Tivoli Monitoring version 6.2.2.

Get Hiperdispatch information with OMEGAMON XE For z/OS

Hiperdispatch is a new workload dispatching mechanism that is available with IBM System z10 and z/OS 1.10 (or z/OS 1.9 and 1.8 with appropriate maintenance). Hiperdispatch improves system performance by doing such things as optimizing processor-level caching.

OMEGAMON XE for z/OS provides extensive information on Hiperdispatch. OMEGAMON XE on z/OS V4.1 provides support with PTFs UA39283 and UA39284, and APARs OA23220 and OA23223, and of course with OMEGAMON XE on z/OS Version 4.2 (V4.2 is GA, as well).

If you want to learn more about Hiperdispatch and what OMEGAMON shows about Hiperdispatch, Laurence Hart of IBM Corporation did an excellent presentation at Share in Denver. Session 5136, " Demystifying HiperDispatch using IBM Tivoli OMEGAMON XE on z/OS" is the best and most concise discussion I've seen of this topic (there is more to it than you may initially think). If you belong to Share, or have a copy of the proceedings, you should be able to get access to the material.

The value of integrated network performance information

One of the true value adds of using the Tivoli Enterprise Portal (aka the 'TEP') is the ability to pull together information from a variety of sources into an integrated view. One of my favorite uses for this approach is to pull in information from sources, such as OMEGAMON XE for Mainframe Networks, side by side with OMEGAMON for CICS or IMS. This adds tremendous value in terms of being able to understand the impact of the network on the overall response time. Here I show an example of what I'm talking about where I have network data and IMS response time data side by side.