Complex IBM i environments generate a lot of messages that must be monitored to ensure that your systems and applications are functioning as expected. Making sure all issues are quickly resolved is critical for data integrity, meeting SLAs and legal requirements, customer satisfaction, system security, and more.
To that end, here are seven capabilities your IBM i Message and Resource monitoring solution should possess to enable total visibility over your IBM i environment and increase your ability to resolve issues quickly.
#1 Notification, escalation & scripting
An IBM i Message and Resource Monitoring solution eliminates the need for DevOps and admins to search out problems. IT responders can be quickly alerted of potential issues by text, email or other methods in real-time, notifying them to immediately investigate further.
Even better than real-time notification is being able to automate message responses with scripting, issuing corrective actions without human intervention. Scripting allows the system to automatically issue responses for known problems.
If an issue isn’t picked up and resolved within a set time period or the scripted responses don’t work, the message can be escalated to the next responder in a call tree. Automated responses free up time. What’s better is that the system knows exactly how to handle each type of message. People will come and go. With scripting, the knowledge on how to solve problems stays within your monitoring software inside organization.
#2 Consolidated message monitoring console with color coding
Many companies have multiple IBM i servers on their local IBM Power hardware. They may also have multiple networked Power systems, each with their own servers. IBM i Message and Resource monitoring software should be able to monitor messages on all servers (local and remote) and show all messages in a consolidated console view (figure 1).
Monitored messages can be color coded to identify which messages need immediate attention. Individual server messages can be highlighted with a specific color representing that system. Message severities for informational messages, inquiry, and critical messages can also be color coded in familiar green, yellow, and red stoplight colors. Color coding makes message monitoring more intuitive.
#3 Service point views to subset monitoring duties
Service point views filter and subset your IBM i systems by specific attributes. Your administrators can sort, view, and react to monitored IBM i messages and resources belonging to a specific client, organization, division, or other server grouping.
Service point viewing is valuable for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who may have hundreds of IBM i servers in their networks and must be able to monitor messages only from one or two client servers at a time. Service points allow you to subset message monitoring duties between different individuals or groups, helping them focus on the critical messages affecting their systems and ignore everything else.
#4 Dashboards for resource monitoring
Dashboard views can show your current CPU and DASD utilization for the IBM I systems you are monitoring. Packages like SEA’s absMessage provide dashboards for viewing data using dial, bar graph, or log perspectives (figure 2). A monitoring dashboard can display information for a single IBM i system or for your entire i server network.
Dashboard views allow you to drill into either CPU or DASD utilization and display monitored data for periods where CPU or DASD exceeded console thresholds or a percentage utilization. Dashboards can also subset utilization for filtered groups of i servers, when the service points feature is available.
#5 Service Desk Integration
Many IBM i messages need to be responded to or resolved by Service Desk personnel. This is especially true when user passwords are disabled and users are locked out of their systems. In situations where Service Desk assistance is required, some IBM i message and resource monitoring solutions such as absMessage can automatically generate IBM i-specific tickets into ServiceNow, PagerDuty and other ticketing platforms (figure 3).
Using commands, APIs, escalation, and other techniques, Service Desk Personnel (or automated responses) can create a service ticket and contact the user for help almost immediately. Integration with Service Desk and ticketing software is becoming a critical feature for IBM i message and resource monitoring software.
Further reading: absMessage Integrates IBM i Message Monitoring with Help Desk Ticket Management, including ServiceNow
#6 Universal message and resource monitoring access from all devices
We live in a mobile world, connected by our mobile devices. Your message and resource monitoring solution should be no different. Replying to messages from mobile devices enable DevOps and admin staff to be more responsive. Mobile device replies are efficient, effective, and immediate for answering IBM i inquiry messages.
An IBM i message and resource monitoring product that works with all interfaces for message response (5250 green screen, a Web console, and mobile devices) is critical. Universal device access is crucial to a successful messaging system rollout.
#7 SIEM Integration
Many companies have invested in System Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions from Exabeam, IBM, LogRhythm, Microsoft, Splunk, and others. Having IBM i system and event information represented in SIEM analysis is important to have a full picture of an organization’s enterprise security posture. It’s important for IBM messaging solutions to integrate with and transmit event data to any existing SIEM solutions you may already have in place (or may get in the future).
Further reading: Integrating IBM i Data with SIEM Solutions
When looking for an IBM i Message and Resource Monitoring package such as our absMessage software, be sure to look for these features.
