IBM AIX and IBM-I monitoring with ITRS Geneos
IBM i (previously known as AS/400) is typically favoured by banks due to its stability and reliable security, making it suitable for storing records of financial transactions and other secure data.
By using our IBM i plug-ins for Geneos, you can monitor your infrastructure, applications and business activity in real-time:
IBM i System: Monitor your CPU, Hardware, Disk, Subsystem and Storage Pools
IBM i Jobs: Monitor the status of all jobs running or queued on your system
IBM i Queue: Monitor your message queue counts, including system and user level activity
IBM i Messages: Monitor, alert and notify on system, user and application level messages, filtering by severity and sender.
IBMi JDBC: Monitor content accessible through SQL, incl. database file content & system views. This opens the door to further app monitoring capabilities and access to metrics related to objects such as data area, user, etc.
IBMi Log Reader: Monitor IFS file content.
IBMi File-Member: Monitor database file size in terms of both members and records.
Real-time insight into the system performance of your IBM i Server through key metrics such as available processing capacity, total number of active jobs, amount of free disk space available, storage capacity and status of auxiliary storage pool (ASP) and status of subsystems.
Gain access to both system & application metrics through the powerful capabilities offered by SQL.
Qualified issue alerting and automated processes: Monitor messages that are passing through your IBM i server, including system operator messages (QSYSOPR) and critical messages (QSYSMSG) that may require immediate action. Apply filters so that you are notified of messages that need reply or action to be taken. Use Geneos alerting and rule engine to prioritise and automate your workflowEnsure database capacity is sufficient for the day
Enhance your security and audit processes: Monitor system activities so that you can be alerted for system failures or security vulnerabilities. Get notified of authentication failures due to multiple failed attempts or get alerted on system hardware failures so you can reduce system downtime and tighten security
Diagnose issues quickly and easily with access to in-depth details about messages including message ID, date/ time, severity, type of message, cause and recovery information if available
Workflow and issue management: Keep track of all your jobs running on your IBM i Server, including status breakdown of active and queued jobs. Monitor time taken to complete a job or if there are issues, identify possible reasons for not completing the job. Understand the type, priority and subsystem in which the job is being executed, so you are able to track and monitor progress easily.
Used on customer projects, the above solution has allowed ITRS to monitor part of the IT estate & applications for a Singapore-based regional bank covering a heterogeneous environment (Windows, Linux, Unix, IBM i):
App monitoring for multiple applications (30% running on IBMi).
Monitoring of transaction flows involving up-to 8 apps per flow.
Multiple dashboards related to transaction flows.
The Geneos IBM i series plug-ins use a remote monitoring methodology, which involves using a remote Netprobe installed on a server outside the IBM i system.
The Netprobe utilises a Java library called JTOpen, the Open Source version of the IBM Toolbox for Java. JTOpen is, in effect, a Java API that allows the user to get information from an IBM i server through direct API method calls, command calls and system value calls, or through SQL queries over JDBC.
For more information on the IBM i plug-in for Geneos