Documentation on event forwarding in the TEP

In some prior posts I have talked about forwarding events from the Tivoli Portal (TEP) to OMNIbus. Here is a link to a nice document that covers the configuration of the event forwarding mechanisms:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21330541&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSQH9J&mynp=OCSSRLD6&mynp=OCSSSQ3B&mynp=OCSSUSPS&mynp=OCSSUSPA&mynp=OCSSXS8U&mynp=OCSS2JNN&mynp=OCSS2JMJ&mynp=OCSS2JFP&mynp=OCSS2JL7&mynp=OCSSLSDR&mync=R

Historical baselines in the TEP

ITM6.2.2 introduced several visual baseline functions to the Tivoli Enterprise Portal. The list of baseline functions includes the following:

Model Situation - create a situation using historical data and statistical functions to “model” and select optimal threshold values

Statistical Baseline - enables the results of statistical functions to be drawn as lines in the chart to visually determine what is normal in an environment

Monitored Baseline - Situation thresholds can be visualized in a bar, area, or plot chart. Allows a user to track in real-time how a metric is performing relative to its threshold.

Historical Baseline - Work with detailed (not summarized) historical data from the data warehouse.

The example shown here shows a statistical baseline as applied to an OMEGAMON IMS repsonse time chart. Here we see, in the lower left corner of the workspace, an area chart of IMS response time, and then I added a statistical baseline of average reposnse time in the form of a line across the area chart. The line makes it easier to see when response time exceeds the average.

Upcoming System z Storage Directions and Best Practices

IBM will be doing a series of seminars on "System z Storage Directions and Best Practices". The seminar will cover a briefing on the latest announcements in mainframe storage and then will discuss the financial benefits of using IBM Tivoli software to manage stored data. The seminars are free and will take place at the following dates/locations (plus I've provided a link for each location to sign up):

April 6th -- Minneapolis, IBM Offices, 650 3rd Avenue South
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/v16_agenda?openform&seminar=ZZZA3YES&locale=en_US

April 7th -- Chicago, Hyatt Building, IBM Offices – Sixth Floor, 71 S Wacker Dr
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/v16_agenda?openform&seminar=4Q2ABUES&locale=en_US

April 8th -- Hazelwood (St Louis), IBM Offices, 325 James S McDonnell Blvd, Building 300
https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/grp/grp004.nsf/v16_agenda?openform&seminar=CEBG3VES&locale=en_US

Upcoming webcast on OMEGAMON CICS V4.20

There will be a webcast in April on "What's New in OMEGAMON XE for CICS on z/OS V4.2.0". The presentation will cover key new features and functions in the tool including: customer enhancements, performance enhancements, exploitation of the new features of CICS Transaction Server v4.1, and repackaging to include full monitoring capabilities of CICS Transaction Gateway z/OS as part of the core OMEGAMON CICS monitor.

The presenter is Richard Burford, and he really knows his stuff in the area of CICS. The webcast will happen at 11 ET on April 15th. Here is a link to sign up for the event:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/telecon/15apr/

Introduction To System z Class

IBM will be offering an "Introduction To System z Overview" class in Chicago in May. I've looked over the class agenda, and it looks like a very good overview of the technical capabilities of z. The class is a 3 day event, May 25th through the 27th, at the Hyatt Center in downtown Chicago. It's intended primarily for "newbies" to z/OS. And the price is right. It's free!!!

Here's the topics to be covered:

Introducing the Mainframe Environment
o System z Architecture and Hardware
o z/OS Overview
o Systems Management
o Security Server
o TSO/E and ISPF
o UNIX System Services
o Working with Datasets
o Using JCL and SDSF
o Web-based Workloads
o Bulk and batch workloads
o ESB workloads
o Consolidated workloads (z/Linux and z/VM)
o Application Programming
o Transaction Management Systems
o Database Management Systems
o WebSphere Brand

For more information & where to register, please contact:
Ahsan Saiyed at 312-529-1602 or aksaiyed@us.ibm.com
Patrick Knott at 314-252-4069 or gpknott@us.ibm.com

First Come, First Serve enrollment.

Changes to OMEGAMON DB2 Thread Cancel

There have been some changes recently to OMEGAMON DB2 in terms of how it handles authorization to execute a CANCEL THREAD command. Here's the story.

PK90400 enhanced OMEGAMON DB2 so that when the product is configured for external security, the userid of the logged on user is passed to DB2 to determine the DB2 authority to issue a CANCEL THREAD command. But, when instead OMEGAMON DB2 is configured for internal security the OMEGAMON task id is passed to DB2 for the authority to cancel a thread. Prior to PK90400 the CANCEL THREAD command was always issued under the authority of the OMEGAMON task.

There is now an APAR to provide a user configurable option to allow OMEGAMON to always issue the CANCEL THREAD under the authority of the OMEGAMON task, even if configured for external security.

Crystal clear, huh? It is an important thing to be aware of, becuse the authority to cancel DB2 threads is probably something you want to have properly secured.

Here is a link for more info:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1PM07797&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSUSPS&mynp=OCSSUSPA&mync=R

New article in IBM System z Advisor

I just published an article in the IBM System z Advisor on "Leveraging OMEGAMON XE and the Tivoli Enterprise Portal to create Management By Exception Views". This is a more detailed discussion of some of the posts I've made earlier in this blog on how to use the TEP to create what I call Management By Exception workspaces.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/systemz-advisor/2010-03/leveraging-omegamon-xe.html

Upcoming OMEGAMON webcast

I will be doing a webcast on "What’s new and exciting In OMEGAMON XE for IMS V4.2.0" this coming March 25th at 11 AM ET. I will be spending time on the new enhancements to the tool, and also looking at some of the new capabilities you get with ITM 6.22, and how to exploit them in OMEGAMON.

It's a freebie, and here is the URL to sign up for the event:

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/telecon/25mar/

Virtual Pulse

If you missed out on going to the Pulse conference in Vegas, you can still take advantage of the Pulse Virtual Online event. This event will give you a chance to check out some of the same material that was covered at Pulse.

Here is a link for the Pulse Virtual event:

http://vshow.on24.com/clients/ibm/pulse2010

RLIM enhancements to OMEGAMON XE For CICS V4.20

I've posted earlier on the new features of OMEGAMON XE for CICS V4.20 (now GA by the way). One nice enhancement I didn't mention is you now have the ability to use RLIM (the resource limting facility) to automatically start an application trace. This means that if you have an outlier transaction running in a CICS region, RLIM can invoke the trace and hopefully capture at least a portion of the problem tran. To take advantage of this option you need to set your RLIM options carefully, but it has potential for certain customers. I will do a nother post on RLIM in more detail later this month.

Pulse 2010

I went to Pulse in Las Vegas this week. Pulse is IBM Tivoli's flag ship trade show and educational event for Tivoli technology. While there wasn't what I consider a huge amount of z specific content at the show, there were some good sessions on ITCAM and integration with OMEGAMON, response time monitoring, cloud computing, Linux on z, alert management, and other interesting topics.
If you didn't get a chance to go to Pulse, later this year there will be Pulse Comes To You, where IBM will take the event on the road. Here is a link to info on Pulse Comes To You. In the coming weeks check this link for more info:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/pulse/pulsecomestoyou/

OMEGAMON DB2 history collection options

I was visiting a customer recently and the topic of collecting historical data using OMEGAMON DB2 came up. I made the statement that you probably have as many as a dozen different ways to collect history data using OMEGAMON DB2. Couple that with the fact that DB2 has the potential to generate large volumes of trace and history data, and it points towards the need to consider your options when setting up history collection with OMEGAMON DB2.

To prove my point I went through this chart with my customer. You can have DB2 itself send data to SMF, and then run history reports from the SMF data. You can collect data to Near Term History (NTH). The primary use of NTH is for near term viewing within the Classic interface, but if you use the VSAM SEQ option you can also take the data from NTH and send it to other history processes. You can collect snapshot history, which can snap thread and subsystem data, and view that snapahot data within the PE GUI interface (shown at the bottom of the chart).

Which then brings us to Performance Database and Performance Warehouse. It may not be immediately obvious, but there is a difference. Both are DB2 trace data in DB2 tables, but with Performance DB you create and manage the objects yourself from hilev.RKO2SAMP members. Performance Warehouse is automatically managed by OMEGAMON DB2. Other than that, they are pretty similar. My preference is to manage my own objects, because of the size of the data involved.

But we are not done. There is also history in the Tivoli Data Warehouse. This is snap shot data, good for trending analysis, and viewable in the TEP, and using Tivoli Common Reporter. Plus we have many ways to collect data in the form of Collect Report Data (CRD). You can use CRD via the PWH, via ISPF interface, or via batch jobs provided in RKO2SAMP.

Quite a list, huh? I will probably be doing an article on this for Tivoli z Advisor.

ITM 6.22 changes history collection options

There are quite a few changes in the layout and appearance of the TEP with ITM 6.22. New icons, new screen layouts, a new tool bar layout, and new history collection setup is part of ITM 6.22. The screen shots I show here show an example of how the history setup is different with ITM 6.22. If you look at the example, you start with panel on the upper left, where you can select the type of agent for which you want to collect history. In the example I've selected z/OS. Underneath the z/OS selection you see several selections for which history collections have been enabled. When you click on one of the defined collection options, you see the other screen on the lower right. Here I've clicked on the distribution tab, and this is where you can specify what managed systems you want to collect history for.

With ITM 6.22, you have more history options, more flexibility, and more ways to control what history data you wish to gather, and how the data should be warehoused.

Some important new ehancements

My colleague, Wayne Bucek, in his Wayne_z_World blog has some information on a recent set of enhancements to OMEGAMON and ITM that optimize queries and displays that may request large numbers of rows of information. The more data requested, the bigger the savings. Like in the example Wayne mentions, if you are monitoring large numbers of MQ Q managers, this can have a big savings.

Here is a link to Wayne's blog, and the specifics of the maintenance:
https://www-950.ibm.com/blogs/9051592f-7640-466e-8524-6ae7dcc20c79/entry/monitoring_large_numbers_of_queues_better_faster_cheaper17?lang=en

Planning for ITM 6.22

If you are working on a plan to get to ITM 6.22, here is a link to some good information on platform support and compatibility for ITM 6.22. This link will show in detail information on supported operating systems, platforms, databases, etc.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27018000&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSZ8F3&mync=R#Database%20-%20DB2_R-swgroup

View threads in a data sharing group from OMEGAMON classic

For those OMEGAMON DB2 users that run DB2 in a data sharing environment, this is an enhancement that was added a while back to the classic interface, but you may have not noticed. The top line of the classic interface is the command line. The left portion of the command line is where you can enter various commands, screen space names, and navigational commands. The data sharing group support added some options on the right portion of the command line. You can now specify the DB2 subsystem, and if you want a single system (S option) view, or the data sharing group view (G option).

In the example I show first, on the top left, a single system view (DB2S option S), and notice there are no threads to view. I then specify option G for the data sharing group view. Now I can see threads connected to the DB1S DB2 member in the data sharing group. Also, I can drill in for thread detail, just like any thread in the classic interface.

This is a handy navigation option that you may, or may not have noticed before.

Situation overrides provide added flexibility

I've talked before about situation management, optimizing situation usage to make situations more relevant, and doing things like using policies to manage situations, such as for time of day processing. If you are running ITM 6.21 or above you have the ability to take advantage of an interesting function called Overrides. The override mechanism provides a way to specify a different threshold settings for different requirements, such as Prime shift or Non-prime shift.

I include an example of how to use overrides. To access the override logic you have to go to the distribution tab for the situation editor, select a managed system and then click the override button. You can then specify the value setting, and here I specify if the setting is for Prime or Non-Prime shift. It's an interesting option, and I plan to work with it some more to see how it may be effectively exploited.

DB2 10 for z/OS goes beta

Being a DB2 guy from a ways back, this is a cool announcment. DB2 10 For z/OS is going beta. Here is a link for more info.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/zos/db2-10/

OMEGAMON DB2 Near Term History

OMEGAMON DB2 has a very useful Near Term History (NTH) function. NTH provides an easy way to be able to retrieve and review DB2 Accounting and Statistics records from the past few hours of DB2 processing. The data is stored in a set of VSAM files allocated to the OMEGAMON collection task. How far back the history goes depends upon the size of the files and the amount of data being written to these files. Now some of the data volume is driven by the DB2 workload activity. Accounting records are typically written when a DB2 thread terminates processing, and it is the Accounting data that is often looked at by the analyst when studying what DB2 applications have been doing. Statistics records are created on a time interval basis. Usually, you will have much more accounting data than statistics data. Also, OMEGAMON has the ability to pull in additional trace IFCIDs to get information on things such as dynamic SQL activity.

To understand the amount of data being gathered by NTH, there are displays that show the number of records written to the NTH files, by type. In the example I show, you see an example of common NTH settings/options, and then you see the record count in the NTH record information display. If you look carefully you see that 'Perf-Dyn SQL' has a lot of records written relative to the other record types. This is a good way to understand the impact of enabling certain collection options, such as dynamic SQL collection, and see how many trace records are being gathered, as a result.

Did you know? About ServerPac....

Tivoli products on z, like OMEGAMON , can be ordered from Shopz in the form of a ServerPac.
You get the benefits of preinstalled datasets, and current maintenance already in those datasets, and the ability to configure the tools more quickly. Among the products supported include TWS for z/OS, IBM SA for z/OS, Tivoli Decision Support for z/OS (various components) , NetView for z/OS, ITCAM for SOA, and of course OMEGAMON (DB2, CICS, z/OS, IMS, Storage, Mainframe Networks, Messaging).

If you are pondering rolling out V4.20, this is a good way to get started quickly.