CCSS Launch MQSeries(r) Monitoring on IBM Power Systems
Released on: July 3, 2008, 12:44 pm
Press Release Author: CCSS Corp
Industry: Software
Press Release Summary: CCSS, the IBM Power Systems solution developer, today announces a major new product innovation in the form of MQSeries* Monitoring. This new capability forms part of the latest release of their well known system performance monitoring and reporting solution, QSystem Monitor, and marks a significant entry by CCSS into the complementary arena of application monitoring
Press Release Body: CCSS, the IBM Power Systems solution developer, today announces a major new product innovation in the form of MQSeries* Monitoring. This new capability forms part of the latest release of their well known system performance monitoring and reporting solution, QSystem Monitor, and marks a significant entry by CCSS into the complementary arena of application monitoring.
The new monitoring functionality targets four key components of MQSeries: MQ Queue Managers, MQ Listeners, MQ Channels and MQ Queues. Development Managers will now be able to target each of these components with a series of dedicated monitors that will impose all the benefits of pro-active monitoring and management in their MQSeries environment. Increased efficiency and the ability to save time, as well as fast problem identification and resolution are just some of these benefits already enjoyed by system manager colleagues who already use QSystem Monitor.
Managing Director of CCSS, Ray Wright, explains why CCSS has now embraced application monitoring: "In many ways, this MQSeries monitoring functionality is a very natural extension of the traditional system monitoring we focus on in our core business. We've always believed that improving systems management for customers was as much about helping them to create a pro-active approach to management as it was about any one particular function or feature of our solutions. With that in mind, many customers that had already made this transition wanted to extend the same approach to core applications, and more specifically, to their MQSeries environment. Happily, the structure of the MQSeries solution lends itself so well to this type of approach - we feel that it's a very complementary addition of functionality to QSystem Monitor and one that customers will feel is intuitive to use."
New monitors for MQ Queue Managers will keep a watchful eye on four key elements including the status of the MQ Queue Manager itself, the Command Server Status, Initiator Status and Connection Count. The status monitoring is vitally important as if any one of these elements becomes inactive and this is not immediately detected, requests won't be issued or received, channels won't be started and the Queue Manager will cease to run. Similarly, the status of critical MQ Listeners, which must be started for MQ communications to be received, can now be monitored around the clock.
Additional Monitors for MQ Channels include a number of performance indicators which can assist in fast problem resolution. These comprise Bytes Received/second, Bytes Sent/second, Compression Ratio, Compression Time, Exit Program Time, and Network Time. As with all such metric measurements, users are able to define thresholds for each one and will be automatically alerted (via SMS, Email or Pager) should a breach occur. The Average Message Time on Queue is another important monitor as any spikes in the time spent on a queue prior to processing could be an indication of a problem elsewhere (for example, the communications environment) that is directly impacting the queue and causing a delay.
Completing the round up of new MQ Series monitors are those that surround the MQ Queues. These include the Application Status, Age of Oldest Message, Average Queue Time, and Queue Depth, all of which offer insight into any unresolved issues. Queue Depth/Maximum gives users a percentage view of the number of messages - often a more meaningful expression than a straight number count. Similarly, Queue Depth/Trigger offers a view of the number of messages as a percentage of the trigger depth. In this case, a figure of 100% would mean that a trigger program or event should have taken place. Open Count - Input and Open Count - Output monitors show the number of applications that are putting on and taking off messages from a queue. Depending on the time of day, if either of these two monitors read zero, there could be a problem that has caused the applications to stop interacting with the queues.
The final two monitors for MQ Queues are the Uncommitted Message Count and the Dead Letter Queue. The first is a very important check as it identifies messages on a queue that were unable to be sent. Resolving these particular messages puts them back on the queue or alternatively, users can choose to delete them. Uncommitted messages, by definition, exist on this queue if they are problematic. If MQ cannot send a message for a particular period of time, it would be sent to the Dead Letter Queue. Pro-active environments can set a threshold of 1 for this particular monitor to maintain rigorous, precision control of the MQ environment.
In addition to the newly created monitors, many of QSystem Monitor's existing functionality also plays neatly into the MQ environment such as IFS Monitoring (as MQ files are stored here), Subsystem/Job Monitoring (as MQ runs in its own subsystem) and Thread and Library Monitoring (showing the number of threads as a measure of activity and dedicated MQ Libraries for each Queue Manager.)
MQ Series monitoring is available in QSystem Monitor V12 (R9) from July 2008. Contact CCSS for more details. http://www.ccssltd.com
* MQSeries, now known as IBM Websphere MQ®
ENDS
About CCSS
CCSS develops, supports and markets IBM Power Systems (System i/ i Series) performance monitoring and reporting, message management and remote management solutions. An Advanced IBM Business Partner, CCSS develops powerful solutions to support some of the world's most demanding System i environments across many industries including insurance, banking, pharmaceutical and manufacturing. All CCSS solutions are IBM ServerProven.
Existing customers that rely on CCSS's feature-rich solutions include leading organisations such as Volvo, Mattel, Newell-Rubbermaid, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Siemens Medical, RWE npower and Waterstone's.
CCSS is headquartered in Gillingham, Kent, UK with key regional headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Bonn, Germany and Makati City, Philippines together with a global agent network spanning Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.
www.ccssltd.com
MQSeries is a registered trademark of IBM Corporation.
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