Service Management Unite - the newest OMEGAMON GUI user interface

You may or may not have heard about it.  There is a new GUI user interface for OMEGAMON and SA automation called Service Management Unite (SMU).  SMU is an integrated GUI that pulls together information from monitoring and from automation.

SMU is very flexible and customizable and one of the strengths of SMU is its ability to support such things as widgets.  SMU does not have the Java requirement of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal, so it is easier to deploy and has less of a desktop requirement.  SMU also has nice integration capabilities that make pulling in information from tools such as IBM Operational Analytics (IOAz) very easy and seamless.  SMU also works well on mobile devices, such as iPads and smartphones.

The following is an example of what SMU looks like:

More on monitoring Java on z/OS

The IBM JVM, as implemented on z/OS is multi-threaded environment.  What this means is that in a JVM there may be multiple work items executing simultaneously.  To maintain the control and integrity of resources the JVM will use structures, such as locks, to control serialization and maintain integrity.  OMEGAMON for JVM will provide information on locks and lock usage inside the JVM.

The following is an example of the lock display within OMEGAMON:

Why monitor Java on z/OS?

Why monitor Java on z/OS?  Is there really that much Java on z?  The answer more and more seems to be that there may be more Java around than you realize.  You may be seeing Java embedded into more and more tools and supporting code.  You may even be seeing some application modernization where legacy code is being re-written to Java.

Omegamon JVM provides detailed analysis of what is happening inside the JVM running on z/OS.  One of the key areas to monitor is Java Garbage Collection (GC).  GC is a typical are of concern in any Java environment, really regardless of platform.  GC being done too often can waste CPU resource.  GC not done often enough can result in memory issues in the JVM.

Here's an example of the Garbage collection data collected by Omegamon JVM.  Note that you may see the GC data both in real time and view the data in history.  History may be important since that gives you an opportunity so see activity over time, and perhaps see trends in usage.

Monitor Java on z/OS? - A look at OMEGAMON for JVM

When this tool came out a few months back, it was originally positioned as an add-on to OMEGAMON z/OS.  As it turned out interest in the tool has been big enough that OMEGAMON JVM is now a stand-alone monitoring component.

Why worry about monitoring java on z/OS? Well, there might be more Java running on your z/OS environment than you realize.  One of the nice out of the box features of OMEGAMON z/OS is that it will auto-discover all the Java activity on your system.

The example above shows the main panel for OMEGAMON JVM.  The bottom portion of the panel shows all the JVMs that have been discovered on the system, but are not currently being actively monitored.  The top portion shows JVMs where the OMEGAMON agent has been enabled, and in depth monitoring is happening.

You may be interested to find out just how much Java is, in fact, running on your system.

2017 Systems Technical University

Coming up in May is IBM Systems Technical University.  This looks to be an excellent technical event with a solid Systems z focus.  In the past you may have heard of this event under the name of Edge (you may have noticed IBM likes to rename events).

I will be presenting as part of the technical agenda.  Plus we will be holding OMEGAMON hands on lab events.  Come take the latest version of OMEGAMON for a test drive.

IBM Systems Technical University will be held in Orlando May 22nd to the 26th.  Here is a link for more information on the event:

https://www-03.ibm.com/services/learning/ites.wss/zz-en?pageType=page&c=P427100P37549E44