MAINVIEW® for IMS

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Key features

Saves investment costs and simplifies systems management with a single tool to manage any implementation of IMS —from traditional configurations to sophisticated IMS Parallel Sysplex clusters
Provides proactive control by quickly and easily identifying and resolving IMS systems management problems before they impact end-user service levels
Delivers IMS monitoring, performance tuning, reporting, cost allocation, and automation
Provides a clear path to show details about performance issues, systems, and workloads
Reduces the risk of costly outages
Is easy to install, maintain, and operate

Business challenge

IMS, the world's fastest and most popular database and transaction management system, has evolved into the open distributed client/server and object-oriented environment that today encompasses Web technologies. Processing a common workload in this multi-system environment presents unique challenges in systems management and performance monitoring.

The IMS environment has become increasingly complex. Given the challenges facing the management and monitoring of IMS workloads, organizations require a solution to gain awareness of all IMS activity, regardless of the IMS configuration or the number of systems involved.

The enterprise server has evolved into the backbone of eBusiness. IMS drives not only legacy processing, but also client/server applications and Web technologies. Globalization and eBusiness demand continuous availability.

New technologies, coupled with growing data and the need for continuous availability, increase the complexity of managing IMS applications and systems. In this highly complex environment, you need a simple way to monitor, measure, and manage IMS performance and utilization. You need to prevent problems before they affect users.

BMC Software solution

The MAINVIEW for IMS product line from BMC Software offers the number one solution for managing and monitoring IMS workloads. This solution is based on proven technology of the MAINVIEW product family and can be deployed rapidly. It satisfies the expanding IMS systems management requirements without increasing its complexity.

MAINVIEW simplifies IMS management by providing the same interface for managing traditional implementations and sophisticated Parallel Sysplex (IMSplex) data-sharing groups. It helps to identify and correct IMS system problems easily and effectively. Its flexibility, ease of use, ease of installation, maintainability, and operation make MAINVIEW attractive to all levels of IT support while reducing the demands on a highly skilled technical force. The MAINVIEW for IMS product line provides two products for all of your managing and monitoring needs: MAINVIEW for IMS Online and MAINVIEW for IMS Offline.

Key functions and benefits

Manages IMS workloads
Detects degradation instantly
Determines exceptions immediately
Quickly uncovers causes of IMS performance problems
Achieves rapid problem resolution with integrated action services
Creates detailed performance and transaction history
Traces applications in detail
Analyzes performance trends and recovers costs
Delivers immediate value
Uncovers Internet and MQSeries activities
Provides rapid installation
Builds on the power of MAINVIEW

MAINVIEW for IMS Online

The MAINVIEW for IMS Online product provides IMS workload management, instant degradation detection, immediate exceptions determination, and rapid problem resolution with integrated action series. MAINVIEW for IMS Online also provides integrated automation when working with AutoOPERATOR for IMS.

IMS workload management

Performs constant surveillance of the IMS environment by continuously monitoring the usage and availability of IMS resources and the activities of workloads
Issues warnings as soon as a problem is detected
Offers an easy-to-use solution with full analysis capabilities to rapidly determine the cause of poor performance or abnormal circumstances
Provides the facilities to measure workload performance and database contention across IMS systems and IMSplexes

Detects degradation instantly

Offers highly efficient monitoring technology to continuously sample workload activity and resource utilization
Detects any degradation in workload throughput or erratic use of resources
Shows details about elements of transaction code response time
Instantly identifies delay factors attributed to queuing, resource constraints or execution delays in a specific IMS area or across an IMSplex environment
Pinpoints scheduling constraints, resource contentions, and design issues that hinder transaction performance
Offers options to drill down to extensive levels of detail in each problem area

Determines exceptions immediately

Uses a powerful, integrated exception-generation engine to deliver access to performance information provided by MAINVIEW
Evaluates multiple conditions to determine if true exceptions exist or are emerging
Provides alarm messages with powerful point-and-shoot capabilities to automatically help IT staff navigate to a detailed view of the conditions causing specific problems
Preserves information surrounding an exception for subsequent analysis
Presents extensive data to AutoOPERATOR as a set of variables, extending the power of performance automation

Achieves rapid problem resolution with integrated action services

Empowers authorized users to perform dynamic tuning functions
Queuing problems caused by insufficient message regions can be resolved with a simple line command assigning the class to an idle region
Using the single system image capabilities for automating messages with AutoOPERATOR, a single line command can invoke actions to be performed against one or multiple IMS systems. An example of this command is to "Stop this transaction across all members of a data-sharing group."

Obtain detailed performance and transaction history

In an IMS environment, where the difference between good and poor performance is measured in tenths of a second or less, it is not always easy to determine user transaction problems in real-time. MAINVIEW for IMS:

Uses sampling techniques combined with true measurements of transaction response times to depict an accurate reflection of workload profiles
Provides extensive details of each transaction that has been completed, which can be retained and recalled online
Presents the vast wealth of IMS activity information in real-time
Simplifies obtaining historical information by issuing a command to change the display time frame from the current time to a designated point in history
Enables the use of information by multiple users with little additional overhead

Trace applications easily

Captures summary statistics of the execution of every transaction processed
Filters, captures, and identifies transactions that do not match expectations
Offers detailed tracing capabilities to help debug complex application performance problems associated with the execution of particular transactions
Provides abundant information in chronological order on each type of call to DL/I, DB2, or MQSeries
Includes details such as call elapsed time, return codes, and I/O information

Automation with AutoOPERATOR for IMS

The AutoOPERATOR product provides the automated, proactive edge to detect situations as they emerge and the ability to determine their cause before they become significant problems. By exploiting the synergy with AutoOPERATOR for IMS, reaction to events can be performed reliably and instantaneously, eliminating costly outages.

The powerful AutoOPERATOR Rules Processor responds to messages received from IMS and exception conditions detected by MAINVIEW for IMS.

Rules can issue commands directly to IMS or execute REXX EXECs to carry out actions and conduct further analysis
Automation has full access to the data available from MAINVIEW
Drives other MAINVIEW functions, such as starting a trace or modifying monitor attributes

MAINVIEW for IMS Offline

The MAINVIEW for IMS Offline product provides extensive transaction level reporting and analysis capabilities. These reporting features can be used for cost recovery by providing a usage based method for allocating costs.

Analyzing Performance and Trends

Uses the unique information created by the MAINVIEW for IMS Event Collector in combination with IMS log records to generate comprehensive response time and resource utilization analysis reports.
Provides extensive reports on user and system activity and database performance
Provides reports to verify whether service level agreements are being met and to understand long-term trends and changes in overall behavioral patterns of the IMS system
Allows operations and systems programming departments to understand and maintain the balance between the volume of work and the capacity to process it

Cost Recovery

Uses the transaction accountant to exploit the detailed event collector information to recover the costs of IMS usage
Delivers a billing facility to charge customers precisely for the services they have used
Charge-back structure is user customizable

MAINVIEW for IMS delivers immediate value

Single solution—Manages traditional and Parallel Sysplex environments
Unparalleled integration—Is integrated with MAINVIEW for MVS, DB2, CICS, IP, VTAM, Websphere, MQ Series, and AutoOPERATOR, using a single interface
Extensive detail—Abundant information on all IMS resources and activity
Unprecedented tracing—Provides information on every call, return code, and timing
Advanced automation—Reacts to events when they occur and examines performance data
Alarm management—Evaluates multiple criteria before raising an alarm
Database performance—Offers unique views for monitoring database activity and response times
Delay avoidance—Decompresses performance pictures to identify areas to conduct analysis
Cross-reference—Identifies the relationship between transactions, programs, and databases
Dynamic tuning—Modifies the status of displayed IMS objects

Uncovers Internet and MQSeries activity

Identifies the status and details of OTMA services and clients
Determines which clients are associated with each IMS server and which clients and servers are ready to send and receive transaction messages

Simplifies the look and feel of IMS with MAINVIEW Explorer

MAINVIEW Explorer provides complete access to IMS and other MAINVIEW products via a Web browser from any desktop
Uses charts, active status icons, trees, and other graphical displays to show non-technical personnel what is happening to their OS/390 systems in terms that are easily understood
Shields users from the complexity of OS/390 by plugging directly into the MAINVIEW databus, performing the complicated analysis for them and by providing direction on any actions that should be taken
Contains a Web-ready GUI that gives a wide range of users the ability to see performance-related information and make informed decisions about OS/390 systems, subsystems, transactions, and workloads
Allows customers to extract information from their OS/390 environment and bring it to the desktop, freeing them from the limitations of OS/390 manipulation and reporting capabilities

Provides rapid installation and security

Installs quickly with the BMC Software installation mechanism to deliver a complete pre-built SMP/E environment and simple panel-driven customization
Installation and customization to be completed within a few hours
Provides views that can be customized and tailored to suit individual site requirements
Offers sample automated solutions to common availability problems for out-of-the-box deployment
Allows views, services, and commands to be fully secured through easy-to-administer internal product security features or through an external security manager such as RACF or CA-ACF2

Builds on the power of MAINVIEW

Industry-leading customers in all major markets worldwide have used the MAINVIEW solution to manage their IMS systems. MAINVIEW for IMS is part of the MAINVIEW product family, which offers closely integrated solutions and advanced functionality for monitoring, managing and automating traditional and Parallel Sysplex environments.

About BMC Software

BMC Software, Inc. [NYSE: BMC], is the leading provider of enterprise management solutions. The company focuses on Assuring Business Availability® for its customers by helping them proactively improve service, reduce costs and increase value to their business. BMC Software solutions span enterprise systems, applications and databases. Founded in 1980, BMC Software has offices worldwide and is a member of the S&P 500, with fiscal year 2002 revenues of approximately $1.3 billion. Visit http:// www.bmc.com to learn more.

22690 12/02