Plot chart options in the Tivoli Portal

One of the nice features of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal is the ability to select specific monitoring data and plot that data over time.  Some things are easy to plot in that they are single metric numbers (like LPAR CPU percent, for example).  Other things may be a little trickier.  For example what if you want to plot the CPU usage of multiple address spaces and do it within a single plot chart?

Here's an example of how you can do it.  First, set up your plot chart like you usually would (click and drag the plot chart icon from the tool bar to the desired spot on the workspace).  Next, use the filter options in properties to specify what you want to plot.  In this example we are plotting all the tasks that start with DEMO in the name.  Then click on the Style tab and click on the chart icon.

Now here's the magic.  Notice to the right there is a button that says "Attributes across all rows".  Click this button.  This will enable the plot for each task named DEMO*  in a single plot chart.

Here's an example of the options, and the finished plot chart on the lower left.

Independent blog analysis of OMEGAMON V5.1

I' ve posted quite a bit over the past two months about OMEGAMON z/OS and CICS V5.1.  If you're interested in an analysis from an independent (meaning not IBM) source, check out the Ptak/Noel blog.  Their blog post, "IBM OMEGAMON V5.1 = Good reasons for Customer Interest and Excitement" goes into a good overview of the key features offered in V5.1.

If you want to check out their analysis, here's a link:
http://ptaknoel.com/ibm-omegamon-v5-1-good-reasons-for-customer-interest-and-excitement/

Upcoming webcast on z/OS storage management

There will be a webcast next week entitled  "Improve the management of your growing mainframe storage environments". 

Topics covered will include using a common set of tools across many storage systems, tailoring alerts, automating tasks,  preplanning corrective actions, and supporting resource management  through an enterprise-wide view of storage infrastructure. 

The event is April 26th at 11 AM ET.  If you are interested in attending, here's a link:
http://ibm.co/xYrbIn

A couple informational events worth checking out

There are a couple informational events coming up that you may find interesting.

The first is a webcast, "What’s new with IBM workload automation?"  is being presented by Flora Tramantano, Tivoli Workload Automation Product Manager.  The presentation will discuss Tivoli Workload Scheduler for z/OS, and how it uses business policies to aggregate and centrally manage cross-enterprise,  and how heterogeneous workloads may be managed to support business goals and service levels.

The event is May 17, 2012, 11 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time.  To attend you can register at:
http://ibm.co/Hd7XaV

The second event is a a DB2 Technical Update Briefing.  In this event there will be discussions on

• Lessons learned in planning your migration to DB2 10 for immediate CPU savings
• Using DB2 10 to scale-up or scale-out simply, and with less system management
• New capabilities in protecting your data with encryption, obfuscation, audit, security, compliance and vulnerability assessment of data
• Major, new enhancements in DB2 Utilities, for DB2 10 and improvements to performance and availability

There will be discussion on OMEGAMON DB2 capabilities and support for DB2 10.

The event is April 18th in Nashville, TN.  So if you are in the Nashville area, it's worth checking out.  Here's a link to attend.

http://ibm.co/IfvxEs

Added links for all the videos

For convenience I added links for all the videos on the right side of the blog.

More Youtube videos on the new enhanced 3270 user interface

Here are some more Youtube videos to check out that show OMEGAMON V5.1 enhanced 3270 user interface in action.  These videos go through several common usage scenarios.  They're worth taking a look at.  Here's the links:

Navigate between CICS regions within the same CICSplex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUlL0ZU4ZYE&feature=related

Locate and purge a task that is causing a CICS SOS condition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fKxtVdoayg&feature=relmfu

Detect and diagnose problems with CICS Web Services.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-KxKwVgLMg&feature=relmfu

Using the Filter and Find in CICS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lib57ZfVupw&feature=relmfu


Edit Resource Limiting Rules for a CICS region.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM4eeOHhEcw&feature=relmfu

More on OMEGAMON CICS CICSplex support

I had a comment a couple days ago.  "If you use CICSPlex SM then OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS v5.1 can consume and use those definitions so that you do not have to maintain two sets of rules."

That's correct, and it's a very important point I obviously did not make very clear in my original post.  If you use CICSplex SM, then those definitions can be used in terms of how the regions will be grouped and appear in the enhanced 3270 ui.  But, I often get asked if you have to use CICSplex SM, and the answer is no.  With the grouping mechanism I mentioned in the prior post, you can use whatever method works for your requirements.

Thanks for the comment and the clarification.

Configuration considerations for OMEGAMON CICS V5.1

When you use the new enhanced 3270 interface with OMEGAMON CICS V5.1, one thing that becomes clear quickly is it's orientation towards a CICSplex environment.  Does that mean you have to be running what would technically be considered a CICSplex to use the tool?  Well, not really.  In many shops CICSplex is a very fluid term. 

From the perspective of OMEGAMON CICS V5.1 a CICSplex can really just mean a grouping of CICS regions.  The nice thing is it's easy to set up the groupings based upon whatever criteria you need.  Here's an example of what I'm referring to.  You can use the setup panels in the enhanced 3270 ui to specify your CICS region groupings.  Notice you can use criteria like Jobname, SMFID, and more to define your groupings.

New OMEGAMON CICS V5.1 FIND command is a handy feature

One of the new commands added in OMEGAMON CICS V5.1 is the FIND command.  With the FIND command you can have OMEGAMON CICS search across the CICSplex and locate CICS related resources defined across various CICS regions.  The resources could include such things as transactions, programs, databases or other components.

Here is an example of how the FIND command may be used.  If you look at the top screen shot,  we are issuing a command, FIND TRAN ABRW.  This command will find all the CICS regions where the ABRW transaction is defined.  The middle screen shot shows the result of the FIND command.  Here we see each region with the ABRW transaction, and you have the ability to drill down on each of these regions for more detail on the transaction,  and its related resources.  The bottom screen shot shows commands you can enter, such as enable or disable the transaction, display the transaction details, or display the program details.

The FIND command is a useful new tool that makes it much easier to understand the relationships of resources across CICS regions.