Introducing Agentic AI in IntelliMagic Vision with watsonx Assistant for Z

For over 20 years, IBM Z IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS has been empowering mainframe performance analysts with enhanced z/OS performance and application reliability through proactive health insights and intelligent analysis. The capabilities provided in IntelliMagic Vision has long utilized embedded z/OS domain expert knowledge and advanced statistical analysis. Now, with the help of watsonx Assistant for Z, we are happy to announce the release of the IntelliMagic Agent – an AI Agent powered by watsonx, designed to act as an experienced co-worker to aid and assist analysts as they use IntelliMagic Vision to improve reliability and performance.

watsonx Assistant for Z Accelerates Report Finding

With our initial release of the IntelliMagic Agent within IntelliMagic Vision, finding and understanding specific reports has never been easier.

One challenge customers, particularly those newer to z/OS performance, have faced over the years is quickly and easily finding important information in the data that z/OS provides. IntelliMagic Vision has made this significantly easier by providing over 30,000 out-of-the-box reports in a well-organized menu with intuitive drill down options. These are excellent for performance deep analysis, but analysts sometimes have specific reports in mind that they want to analyze that may not be as easy to locate even with the existing search capability.

Our navigation menu and intuitive drill down options are excellent for performance deep analysis, but analysts sometimes have specific reports in mind they want to analyze that may not be part of the higher-level navigation. In these instances, they typically perform a search.

With the integration of watsonx Assistant for Z, users of IntelliMagic Vision can now utilize the IntelliMagic Agent to find specific reports using natural, conversational language. This is a huge improvement from the previously available report Search functionality, and a feature that will save users of IntelliMagic Vision significant time in performing their root cause analysis while searching for reports. The IntelliMagic Agent returns highly tailored search results with helpful background information and advice on each report, taking into consideration the report currently being analyzed on screen.

Using the IntelliMagic Agent for Analyzing CICS Transactions

As an example, let’s imagine you are beginning an analysis of CICS transactions. From your IntelliMagic Vision home dashboard, you ask the IntelliMagic Agent to “Show me highest volume CICS transactions”

The IntelliMagic Agent generates multiple possible reports for your consideration, with some background information on each to help inform your decision. 

In this case, the first suggested report is the report we were looking for.

After looking at this report and considering other analysis options that are reflected in the set of previews for this report set across the top of the screen, you decide to focus your analysis on transactions with the highest response times.

Therefore, you type into the IntelliMagic Agent, “Which CICS transactions have the highest response time?”

Once again, the Agent generates multiple reports for you to review and navigates to the first one automatically.

At this point we find ourselves in the right place to leverage the powerful context-sensitive drill downs of IntelliMagic Vision to continue our analysis.

Conclusion

The IntelliMagic Agent, powered by watsonx Assistant for Z, helps analysts quickly navigate to relevant reports for the problem they are investigating or the information they are looking for. This both reduces analysts time spent searching for specific reports and helps accelerate root cause analysis.

This is the first step towards an assistant that acts as an expert in both IntelliMagic Vision and the z/OS performance world. Later iterations of the IntelliMagic Agent will include more expert knowledge and will analyze the content of the relevant reports to help you find the answers you are looking for.

To find out more about IntelliMagic Vision, our integration with watsonx Assistant for Z, or to request a custom demonstration of how IntelliMagic Vision elevates your performance team to improve reliability and optimize performance, visit our website here: https://www.ibm.com/products/z-intellimagic-vision-for-zos

And request a free demo here: https://www.ibm.com/account/reg/us-en/signup?formid=DEMO-zintellimagic