AIOps: Monitoring and Observability

AIOps: Monitoring and Observability

AIOps: Monitoring and Observability

Comprehensive performance monitoring and observability of your IBM Z environment. Solutions include OMEGAMON, Service Management Suite for z/OS, and IBM Z Application Performance Management Connect

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Modernizing Mainframe Network Management with OMEGAMON and AI-Powered Analytics

By Shane Li posted 29 days ago

  

Modernizing Mainframe Network Management with OMEGAMON and AI-Powered Analytics 

Introduction 

Modern mainframes are powerful, secure, and essential for mission-critical operations. But in today’s hybrid IT environments, network reliability and security across mainframe and distributed systems are non-negotiable. IBM OMEGAMON AI for Networks delivers comprehensive visibility and proactive management of mainframe network performance. From real-time traffic analysis to encryption insights and virtual IP management, OMEGAMON AI for Networks ensures your networked mainframe environment runs efficiently—and securely. 

Understanding OMEGAMON AI for Networks 

IBM OMEGAMON is a suite of performance and availability management tools for IBM Z environments. OMEGAMON AI for Networks specifically focuses on the mainframe’s TCP/IP and VTAM (Virtual Telecommunications Access Method) stacks, which are key components of the z/OS Communications Server for enabling network communication. It combines deep insights into TCP/IP, VTAM, zERT, DVIPA, and zCX traffic with AI/ML capabilities, open-source analytics platform support, and visibility into legacy protocols like FTP and TN3270. 

It provides deep visibility into network traffic, helping IT operations identify and resolve issues like packet loss, dropped connections, or excessive retransmissions that can degrade performance or disrupt business operations. 

Why It Matters: Business Value 

In high-stakes industries like banking, insurance, and healthcare, even minor network disruptions on the mainframe can have cascading effects. OMEGAMON AI for Networks ensures: 

  • High availability for customer-facing applications. 

  • Faster means time to resolution through centralized, real-time insights. 

  • Improved collaboration between mainframe and network teams. 

1. Unified Network Visibility Across the Stack 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks provides comprehensive real-time views into: 

  • TCP/IP stacks and VTAM traffic 

  • Application TCP connections and listeners 

  • Logical and physical network interfaces 

  • zERT-based encryption visibility 

  • z/OS containers via zCX 

  • Dynamic VIPAs (DVIPAs) and their failover states 

  • Legacy protocols like FTP and TN3270 

  • OSA port statistics and adapter usage, throughput and packet-level monitoring 

This enables proactive identification of slowdowns, retransmissions, and session drops, especially critical for FTP-based file transfers and TN3270 terminal emulation sessions used by business-critical applications. 

2. Security and Connection Health Monitoring with zERT 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks integrates with zERT (z/OS Encryption Readiness Technology) to give organizations full visibility into the security posture of all in-flight network traffic, including legacy protocols like FTP and TN3270.  

Key capabilities include: 

  • Detection of non-secure connections (e.g., FTP sessions lacking encryption, or TN3270 sessions without TLS), allowing teams to enforce compliance with encryption policies. 

  • Encryption protocol classification—see whether connections are using TLS, SSH, IPSEC or are unencrypted. 

  • Audit-ready reporting for regulatory and internal security reviews. 

zERT helps enforce encryption policies across all traffic, including traditional protocols often overlooked in modern security frameworks. 

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3. Application Connections and TCP Listener Visibility 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks extends its deep observability to include application-layer insights, allowing you to monitor how applications using the mainframe network stack in real time. 

Application Connection Monitoring 

  • Identifies which applications are opening or receiving TCP connections 

  • Source and destination IPs and ports 

  • Connection count by application 

  • Response times and retransmission rates 

  • Allows correlation of network performance with specific workloads, such as DB2, CICS, IMS, or custom socket-based apps 

 TCP Listener Monitoring 

  • Detects and monitors active TCP listeners running on z/OS 

  • Listening ports and associated application IDs 

  • Listener availability and uptime 

  • Traffic volume per listener 

  • Useful for validating DVIPA configurations, zCX workloads, and application readiness during deployments or failovers 

Additionally, OMEGAMON AI for Networks helps detect zombie connections: 

TCP sessions that appear open but are inactive, often due to improper session termination or network timeouts. These can: 

  • Consume valuable system resources 

  • Create false impressions of active user load 

  • Introducing potential security risk vectors 

With real-time detection and configurable thresholds, OMEGAMON AI for Networks enables: 

  • Automated alerts for idle or orphaned sessions 

  • Session termination Take-Action routines to clear zombie states 

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3. Visibility into FTP and TN3270 Sessions 

FTP and TN3270 remain widely used for: 

  • Data exchange between LPARs or with external systems (FTP) 

  • User terminal sessions with CICS or ISPF applications (TN3270) 

OMEGAMON AI of Networks offers: 

  • Real-time tracking of FTP file transfers (direction, size, duration, IP endpoints) 

  • Session metrics for TN3270 connections (session count, response time, disconnects) 

  • Determine whether sessions are encrypted 

  • Trend analysis to identify recurring issues across TN3270 or FTP usage 

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This ensures not only performance but also the security and auditability of these legacy protocols. 

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4. Real-Time Anomaly Detection + Historical Reporting 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks excels in detecting anomalies as they happen, using both rule-based thresholds and dynamic baseline (when integrated with AI/ML pipelines): 

  • Live alerts for unusual conditions: 

  • FTP session spikes 

  • Buffer pool shortages 

  • Long response times 

  • Unencrypted sessions 

  • Custom thresholds and escalation workflows 

By monitoring listeners and application-level connections, OMEGAMON AI for Networks can: 

  • Detect missing or unresponsive listeners (indicating app startup issues) 

  • Alert on surges in inbound connections (potential DoS attacks or traffic anomalies) 

  • Track slow response times tied to specific applications or ports 

  • This ensures network teams and application owners have a shared view of performance and can collaborate faster during incidents. 

In parallel, all monitored metrics can be logged to a historical repository enabling: 

  • Trend reporting (e.g., throughput overtime, peak buffer usage) 

  • Capacity planning 

  • Audit/compliance support with encryption history and session tracking 

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5. AI/ML Integration and Dynamic Baselining 

Using open-source data platforms like Grafana, Prometheus, Elastics, Kafka, Splunk, and others. 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks feeds network metrics into enterprise observability pipelines: 

  • AI/ML models build dynamic baselines that adapt to normal traffic trends 

  • Anomaly detection flags abnormal FTP spikes or unusual TN3270 disconnect patterns 

  • Predictive insights support capacity planning and early warning systems 

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6. Advanced TCP/IP Connection and Performance Monitoring 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks delivers in-depth analysis of TCP/IP traffic at the session level, making it possible to detect and resolve subtle network anomalies before they impact application performance or availability. Key metrics and insights include: 

Out-of-Order TCP Connections 

  • Detection of out-of-order or unexpected TCP connection behavior, such as SYN floods, abrupt resets, or connection attempts from unauthorized sources. 

  • These alerts help identify network attacks, misconfigurations, or poorly coded clients. 

TCP Connection State Monitoring and Window Probes 

  • Visibility into TCP state transitions (e.g., LISTEN, ESTABLISHED, FIN_WAIT, TIME_WAIT, CLOSE_WAIT). 

  • Identification of connections stuck in intermediate states. 

  • Monitoring of window probe activity, which signals flow control issues or delays in acknowledgment between peers. 

Response Time and Throughput Metrics 

  • Per-connection response time tracking, allowing for early detection of application or network latency. 

  • Throughput measurements to understand data flow efficiency and bandwidth utilization across key connections, DVIPAs, or zCX containers. 

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Buffer Pool Usage Monitoring 

  • Real-time visibility into the buffer pool, including: 

  • Allocation trends 

  • High water marks 

  • Shortages or contention 

  • These insights help avoid network stack slowdowns due to resource exhaustion and support rightsizing for peak loads. 

These capabilities are especially powerful when integrated with dynamic baselining and AI/ML-driven analytics, allowing you to: 

  • Establish performance norms based on historical patterns. 

  • Detect emerging anomalies like sudden drops in throughput or buffer pool exhaustion. 

  • Automate response actions to restore performance or prevent outages. 

Conclusion: Intelligent, End-to-End Mainframe Network Observability 

In today’s hybrid and highly regulated IT environments, mainframe networks must be secure, high-performing, and deeply observable. IBM OMEGAMON AI for Networks delivers a complete monitoring solution—from the physical network interface (OSA) to advanced routing (HPR, EE), all the way up to application connections and TCP listeners. 

With integrated support for: 

  • Security protocol classification 

  • Real-time anomaly detection 

  • AI/ML-powered baseline 

  • Open-source analytics integration 

  • Zombie and non-secure connection alerts 

  • Historical reporting and TEPS/e3270UI visualization 

OMEGAMON AI for Networks acts as a central nervous system for your IBM Z network environment. 

Whether you're monitoring zCX containers, securing legacy SNA traffic, or ensuring that mission-critical applications remain responsive and protected, OMEGAMON AI for Networks empowers operations teams with the data, insight, and tools to act real time and at scale. 

This is not just network monitoring. This is smart, secure, and integrated network observability for the mainframe era. 

#OMEGAMON    #IBMZ    #AIOpsonZ

Interested in learning more? Contact us today: 

zconcierge@rocketsoftware.com

 

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