System z and security

You may have seen the stories in the news about cyber attacks on various companies, including large financial institutions in the US.  Even while this has been going on, one thing that is worth noting is what seems to be the inherent security of System z. 

If you have an interest in System z and security, here is a couple link worth taking a look at:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/os/systemz/security/

And here's a link for Tivoli z security solutions:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/zsecure/

A useful link on OMEGAMON maintenance and configuration

Here's a useful link that provides good information on OMEGAMON maintenance and configuration.   there are links from this URL to information on Parmgen, on configuring OMEGAMON enhanced 3270 ui, recommended maintenance, PSP information and more.

Here's the URL:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21626495&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSQH9J&mynp=OCSSRLD6&mynp=OCSSZ8F3&mynp=OCSSXS8U&mynp=OCSS2JNN&mynp=OCSS2JFP&mynp=OCSS2JL7&mynp=OCSSLSDR&mync=R

Can you see open situations in the Enhanced 3270?

Can you see open situations in the Enhanced 3270?  The answer is yes if you have PTF UA67643 applied.  Among other things UA67643 adds a new KOBSITEC panel to the enhanced 3270.  Once the maintenance is applied, the easiest way to find the panel is to  type in =KOBSITEC on the command line and press enter. 

Here's an example of what KOBSITEC looks like.

What this means is you can now create situations in the Tivoli Portal, and these alerts will be visible in the 3270 interface. 

Interesting upcoming webcast on DB2 stored procedure analysis

The analysis of DB2 stored procedure performance can get tricky.  You can have a stored procedure that calls another stored procedure and on it goes.  How do you determine exactly what these routines are doing?

The upcoming webcast, "Expert stored procedure monitoring, analysis and tuning on System z" goes into the new stored procedure monitoring and analysis capabilities of OMEGAMON XE For DB2 Performance Expert (note you need to have Performance Expert for this support). 

The webcast will cover:
- Identifying and exposing the mystery behind slow performing stored procedures


- Drilling down to explore every facet of a stored procedure’s performance breakdown

- Identifying SQL performance problems quickly throughout layers of complex applications

- Grouping SQL statements into workloads to compare and track performance improvements

It sounds like an intereesting topic that covers a very powerful new OMEGAMON feature.

The speaker is Charles Lewis, DB2 Advisor and Senior Certified System z Software Technical Professional, IBM.  The event is April 23, 2013 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. 

To attend, here's the URL:
http://ibm.co/ZDXJc5

Check out SMCONNECT

SMCONNECT is very nice blog site for those interested in Service Management.  There's a lot of information and a lot of links to a variety of blogs and wikis.  Here's what SMCONNECT looks like:

To see information related to System z,  just click on the System z link I've highlighted above. From there you will find a lot of information on OMEGAMON,  NetView, automation,  you name it.

Here's the URL:
http://www.smconnect.net/

A useful OMEGAMON DB2 link

OMEGAMON XE For DB2 PM/PE inlcudes a variety of user interfaces.  You have Classic 3270 and the new enhanced 3270 ui, along with ISPF interface.  On the GUI front you have support for the Tivoli Enterprise Portal and also what is commonly called the PE GUI. 

The PE GUI provides a nice GUI interface that offers some very detailed information on the DB2 susbystem, threads, real time and history.  The snapshot history mechanism in the PE GUI is very powerful and is unique to the PE GUI.  Note that whether or not you have PM or PE, you still can use the PE GUI.


A handy way to get the latest version of the PE GUI, here is a link to download the GUI: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=434&uid=swg27013147#OMPEClient-lib

An interesting business partner solution

While at the Pulse event last week I talked to a variety of IBM Tivoli business partners.  One in particular that I found interesting was a vendor called Derdack.  Derdack provides a variety of solutions around the name Enterprise Alert.  If you go this link at their website,  http://www.derdack.com/en/solutions/reliable-mobile-notifications-for-ibm-tivoli/  you will find information on their solution that integrates with IBM Tivoli monitoring. 

What I find interesting with their solution is that it adds some interesting alert management capabilities to ITM that ITM does not provide on its own.  Among these features include multiple formats of notification (voice with text-to-speech, SMS text, instant messaging, e-mail, fax, smartphone push), real-time tracking of notification delivery,  automated escalation chains, smartphone apps for remote incident management, and intelligent notification workflows. 

These all seem like very useful extensions to the monitoring and notification capabilities of base ITM.  While I have not used this solution personally, it looks like very good technology.

About Pulse 2013 - get ready for SmartCloud

Well, Pulse 2013 had come and gone. If you went to the keynotes and various technical sessions, one message is clear.  Cloud is coming so get ready.  For a long time it has seemed as if cloud has been a murky all thigns to all people concept. 

But now you can see solutions and strategies around cloud really starting to emerge.  One keynote I attended cited a number that 50% of IT budgets in the next two years will be devoted to cloud based technology.  If at all accurate that is an amazing number.

With IBM Tivoli that means get ready for SmarCloud.  In the next few months you will be seeing SmartCloud all over the place. 

Tivoli Pulse conference next week

If you happen to be in Las Vegas next week, the IBM Pulse conference will be taking place.  Pulse is IBM's annual all things Tivoli event.  There are quite a few sessions with z/OS specific content at Pulse.  Here's a list of the z-relevant sessions:

• Analyst Insight: Importance of Service Management in integrating Mainframe into Cloud
• System z Meet the Experts
• The Power of Automation
• Trends in System Automation on z for the Smaller Enterprise
• Unlocking the power of System Automation 3.4
• System and Batch automation integration
• IBM & ISO Collaboration to Reduce TCO of Tivoli Suite of Products
• Automating your IMSplex with System Automation for z/OS
• The magic of Tivoli System Automation
• Approaches to enterprise-wide monitoring and problem solving on z
• Integrating Operational Tools Through NetView on z/OS
• OMEGAMON XE what's new with z Monitoring
• Integrating monitors and automation
• Anatomy of a Disaster Averted: How Poland's Ministry of Justice Protected Its Registries
• Customer migration experience from BMC IMF to Omegamon for IMS and System Automation on zOS
• The OMEGAMON Mashup
• Monitoring And Controlling Virtual Tape Units In A GDPS Environment
• PARMGEN Configuration Method with OMEGAMON XE Migration from 4.2 to 5.1 User's Experience
• zBx Automation with System Automation Application Manager
• Integrated z/OS Storage Management - Providing a more efficient solution.
• Customer panel discussion discussing value in System Automation for z/OS
• Customer panel discussion discussing value in OMEGAMON v 5.1
• IBM zEnterprise Automation & Availability
• What's New in GDPS V3.10
• Integrating automation between batch and transmissions
• Building a Private Cloud on zEnterprise with Tivoli
• How TCS integrated SA for z/OS health statuses into their operations console.
• Applications modernization with improved visibility and control using TADz and CICS-IA: a customer story

I will be at the booth for the trade show.  If you are attending Pulse, feel free to stop by.

To attend Pulse, here's a link:

https://www-950.ibm.com/events/wwe/pulse/pulse13reg.nsf/enrollcodes?OpenForm

How region occupancy is calculated by OMEGAMON IMS

Region occupancy in OMEGAMON IMS is a useful measure of how busy the various message regions are in an IMS subsytsem.  The higher the percentage, the busier the message regions are.  Region occupancy can be a good indication as to when it may be time to adjust IMS message regions or add new regions.

Region occupancy is calculated by OMEGAMON IMS as part of the various region displays (for example as a minor of the RGND command in classic interface).  However, it takes some time to be able to calculate region occupancy.  Until the monitor has had enough samples to do the math, the display will just show -init-  versus an actual value. 

What is the formula?  How exactly is it calculated?  This technote will shed a little more light on the process.  Here's a link:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21625498&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSXS8U&mync=R

A couple more informative Share presentations

There were a couple other presentations I attended at Share in San Francisco that I found quite informative. 

One of them was "Managing the Mainframe from an end to end perspective".  This was done by Mike Bonett of IBM.  As with all of Mike's presentations, this one was interesting and had a lot of good content.  Here's a link:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12901.html

The other was "Diagnosing Sysplex Problems".  This was a  very interesting presentation with a lot of content and detail.  Lot of ground covered in just one hour.  Here's a link:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session13042.html

Running historical reports with OMEGAMON CICS

You may or may not have noticed, but OMEGAMON CICS V5.1 no longer comes with historical reporting.  You have the CICS task history (ONDV) feature, but that is for looking at near term task history interactively within the 3270 interface of the tool.  However, if you want to run performance reports, that's a different requirement.   Long term, the direction is to get CICS Performance Analyzer (CICS PA).  CICS PA has a myriad of reporting options. 

But, if you still want to run the old OMEGAMON reporter, there is still a way.  This technote shows a couple different ways to run the old reporter.  You can still download the old code, or if you happen to still have the old V4.20 libraries around (specifically the TKANMOD) then so much the better.

Here's a link to the technote:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21622777&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSLSDR&mync=R

OMEGAMON relevant sessions at Share

Here's links to the OMEGAMON relevant sessions at Share (including my sessions)

DB2 Performance Tuning Using Omegamon DB2 Performance Expert - Use Case Examples and Practical Applications
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12693.html  

Understanding The Impact Of The Network On z/OS Performance (one of my presentations)   https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12780.html  

Automated Performance Management Using IBM Tivoli: Techniques And Best Practices ( a new presentation I created for this Share event)
 https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12880.html  

What's New for z/OS Network Performance Monitoring with OMEGAMON
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12779.html

Using NetView for z/OS for Enterprise-Wide Event Management and Automation
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12781.html

More Share presentations

There were quite a few good presentations at Share this week.  Lot's of updates on things like z/OS 2.1, CICS TS V5.1 and IMS V13, to name a few. 

If you are interested in an update on what's in CICS TS V5.1 here's a good overview:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12414.html

If you are interested in IMS V13 here's a good overview:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12550.html

What is zAware?

At Share this week I learned about a new IBM offering called zAware.  zAware is an interesting piece of technology that looks at the z/OS console logs over time, parses and analyzes the logs, and looks for anomolies in z/OS log information over time.  zAware provides a web interface to view the informaiton, the trends, and the anomolies. 

There were a couple interesting presentations on zAware.  The fisrt presentation is "IBM zAware - Using Analytics to Improve System z Availability".     Here's a link:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session13063.html

The next presentation is "Improve Service Levels with Enhanced Data Analysis".  This presentation also mentions how Tivoli is looking at expoliting zAware in the future.  Here's the link:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12791.html

Share in San Francisco

Well, it's Share week in San Francisco.  As always, Share has an excellent mix of z/OS and z/OS related sessions.  If you're interested in z and the Cloud, Linux on z, Big Data, new stuff in z/OS, CICS and IMS, you name it, there are a lot of good sessions this week.

One session I found interesting was "What's new in z/OS V2.1".  This was a good overview of what is likely coming with the new z/OS release.  Here's a link for the presentation:
https://share.confex.com/share/120/webprogram/Session12728.html

A useful PARMGEN reference

PARMGEN is the new OMEGAMON install process.  PARMGEN is a bit different from the older OMEGAMON ICAT install process.  There are some very useful information and reference sources for PARMGEN.  If you are doing a PARMGEN install you will want to check this page out:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21417935

Debugging Persistent Data Store (PDS) history issues on z/OS

For the z/OS based agents history is collected to a set of files called the Persistent Data Store (or the PDS).  When you look at SYSOUT output in the agent task (the TEMA) or the TEMS, assuming that the PDS is config'ed you will see lots of messages related to PDS initialization and usage.  If there are issues with the PDS then you will likely experience issues if you try to use the history functions in the Tivoli Portal (the TEP). 

Here is a link to a short tech note that menttions some common debugging steps and recommended maintenance level for PDS and history support. 
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21623100&myns=swgtiv&mynp=OCSSQH9J&mynp=OCSSRLD6&mynp=OCSSZ8F3&mynp=OCSSXS8U&mynp=OCSS2JNN&mynp=OCSS2JFP&mynp=OCSS2JL7&mynp=OCSSLSDR&mync=R

One of the suggestion is to just try re-allocating the PDS files using the jobs you get in the ICAT installer.  To be honest, on more than once occasion,  I've seen glitchy behavior in the PDS and in history collection that has been addressed by re-creating these files.

Setting thresholds in the enhanced 3270 interface

So you've installed the enhanced 3270 user interface and now you've logged on and started looking around.  You may have noticed that some fields that display on the various screens may be highlighted with colors like yellow or red.  What controls these color settings?  Why are some fields showing up highlighted in yellow or red (or sometimes blue)?

In the library hilev.RKANPAR there are members that control the threshold settings for these various fields.  For each of the various monitors there is a xxxTHRSH member that correlates to the threshold settings for that monitor.  For OMEGAMON CICS the member is KCPTHRSH, for OMEGAMON z/OS the member is KM5THRSH, for OMEGAMON DB2 the member is KDPTHRSH.

Here we show an example of the contents of the KCPTHRSH member.  In the example you see that for transaction rate if the value is greater than 1000 per minute or less than 100 per minute it constitutes a critical (i.e. red) level.  Same idea for a yellow warning level.  Want to change the setting?  Just overtype the value in the member and save the member to hilev.RKANPARU (important remember to save it to RKANPARU not RKANPAR).   The same process applies to the CPU utilization field,

An upcoming webcast you will not want to miss

In February there will be a webcast that, if you install OMEGAMON, you will not want to miss.  
"Enhanced OMEGAMON V5.1 Installation and configuration saves time and money"  is a webcast session that will go into detail on the new OMEGAMON Parmgen install process.

If you don't know about the Parmgen installation process, now is the time to start getting up to speed.  It's important to be aware that at some point the legacy ICAT install process will go away and Parmgen will be the means you have to install OMEGAMON.

The speaker will be Cecile Day.  Cecile is the expert on the topic. This session will be packed with detailed information.

The event will happen February 21st at 11 AM ET.  To attend here's a link:
http://ibm.co/UyeOAU