z/OS Monitoring News
latest Update 07.01.2011
VNAC
VIP
IPCP
VitalSigns for Network Automation and Control (VNAC)
VNAC provides z/OS System Automation with a fraction of the CPU-Overhead. Its low cost and high efficiency make VNAC the ideal replacement for IBM's NetView™ and CA's NetMaster™. VitalSigns provides monitoring, problem diagnosis, network automation, and performance management for both mainframe TCP/IP and SNA networks. In addition to the immediate savings in money and system resources, you can use VNAC to automate and accomplish these tasks:
- Restart downed resources
- Alert when resources drop unexpectedly, highlight the down resources in bold colors to draw the attention of operators.
- Report incidents to problem management ticketing systems for logging and resolution of problems.
- Trigger REXX scripts based on incoming messages from the network, applications and z/OS systems.
- Automate the starting of applications and resources as part of their system IPL sequences.
- Monitor thresholds of network and applications, generating emails when thresholds are exceeded.
- Monitor the status of batch jobs, alerting when jobs fail
VIP
VIP 7.2 Now Available for General Access
SDS is pleased to announce that VIP 7.2 has achieved General Availability (GA) status. We urge our current VIP customers to take full advantage of 7.2's new features.
To obtain and run VIP 7.2, please contact SDS at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 763-571-9000. We look forward to giving you the new access and activation keys.
With the release of 7.2, we also set the twilight date for VIP 7.0. Support for VIP 7.0 will end on Jan. 1, 2012.
Some of VIP 7.2's New Features
MultiTrace, a Real-Time, Cross-System Packet Trace:
VIP 7.2 makes it significantly easier to diagnose network problems in a z/OS sysplex. The MultiTrace feature—entirely unique to VIP—can perform simultaneous IP packet traces on multiple systems and TCPIP stacks, then merge the results into a single report.
That makes VIP 7.2 the best tool ever made for following the work of sysplex distributor as it routes traffic and balances workloads among a network of z/OS systems.
Forward Console Messages to VIP Alerts:
You can easily configure VIP 7.2 to generate an alert when a specified system console message is logged. VIP's new Rules-Based Exit (RBX) can alert you to any system, application, or network (VTAM and TCPIP) message.
User Interface Improvements:
- New System Overview tree structure provides easier navigation the system resources you need to see.
- New At-A-Glance screens monitor z/OS stacks and interfaces.
- Revamped screens for Local Applications (split into four separate screens) and HPR connections make it easier to find the fields and records that matter to you.
Enhanced Traceroute:
VIP 7.2's traceroute tool automatically probes multiple ports. That means you immediately see the routes for all five of the sockets involved in an Enterprise Extender connection.
Efficient Security Interface:
VIP 7.2 users can change RACF, ACF2, and TopSecret passwords from within the VIP user interface, which is especially useful when dealing with expired passwords.
History Data to SMF Records:
The new VIP SMF records have been designed from the ground up to provide maximum value for historical reporting. Data that is not useful from a reporting perspective has been removed. At the same time, the value of the existing data has been enhanced by several techniques:
- Current-activity counters are maintained as interval totals. For example, the number of connections to an application is recorded in the SMF record as a total of all observed values of the current connection count. If your agent is configured to sample TCP connections every 15 seconds, and SMF records are recorded every 15 minutes, this number will reflect the sum of 60 observations. The number of observations for the recording interval is also maintained in the SMF record, so that an average connection count for the interval can be easily calculated. This technique also allows multiple SMF records to be "rolled up" for long-term archives, and statistically meaningful averages can still be calculated across the longer intervals.
- High- and low-water marks (HWM and LWM) are kept for many activity counters across each SMF recording interval. The time offset of the observation within the recording interval is also kept for each HWM and LWM, allowing you to pinpoint within the range of a single sample interval (usually 5-15 seconds) when the value was observed.
- Buckets are maintained for utilization percentages. These buckets show exactly how many times during the recording interval the utilization was observed to be, for example, between 10% and 20%. Buckets accompany the high-water mark for utilization, and help to show whether a HWM was sustained, or only a momentary spike.
- Cumulative counters are stored as interval deltas. This eliminates the need for the reporting software to calculate a delta from successive records.
IPCP Plus / MVS
New Version 4.6a for MVS
Resources lists can now be defined, updated, deleted, and exported by the IPCPMNT batch program, not just online. Resource lists, contained in IPCPCDSs (command data sets), name groups of resources (files, e.g.) to be accessed by a single IPCP command.
You can now allocate control blocks for SVC99 allocations above the 16 Mg line.