AIOps: Monitoring and Observability - Group home

IBM Z OMEGAMON for CICS V5.6.0 Fix Pack 2

  

Introduction

A recent OMEGAMON CICS update provides new capabilities aimed at improving the user experience, making it easier to see important tasks and utilizing CICS system grouping the customer has already defined. This blog entry describes new features and function enhancements that are available for IBM Z OMEGAMON for CICS V5.6.0 Fix Pack 2 with APAR OA64307.

New features

Background tasks

Most CICS environments have transactions which run on a permanent basis, such as MQ listener tasks, Pipeline listener task, or OMEGAMON tasks. These tasks are rarely of concern when looking at problems.

OMEGAMON has added the capability (via CICS control functions) to define tasks which will not be displayed for any region.

Once a list is set up, OMEGAMON will use it to filter task summary screens (for example, Active Tasks, FIND command outputs) and will not display specified background tasks. Background tasks will still be monitored, but they will not be displayed. 

In this example, Background Task List is set now and using the command FIND ACT * will return all active tasks for the context in use.

Removing the filter shows all tasks.

This new feature enablement is done via “CICS Control Function” screen. Option C on the CICS region

When creating a new list, you should specify CICSPlex name, CICS region name and a list of transactions that you want to exclude from display screens.

Values that you provide could be fully qualified names or names with wildcards. You can add, update, modify, copy, or delete Background Task List. When a list is created transactions that are part of this list will be filtered out from the summary screens. Screen filtering is enabled by default, to disable it hit PF4 or type FILTER on the command line.  

 In the presented pop-up screen hit the “Clear All Filters” button and Background Tasks will be visible in displays again.

CP/SM CICS System groups

OMEGAMON will now import any CP/SM CICS system groups which are configured. You can then use the CONTEXT command to see the monitored regions which are part of the group. Also, you can use the FIND command to search for resources in the selected group of regions. 

To access the CSYS Groups screen use option G from Options Menu next on a CICSPlex name which was derived from CP/SM.

Enhancements to existing features

One convenient feature of OMEGAMON CICS is the FIND command. In addition to exiting options, FIND PORT command is now included, which allows you to search ports used by TCP/IP Services. FIND PORT command is accessible via direct command or from FIND commands drop down list.

In addition, with Fix Pack2 it is now possible to view resource signature information. Go to CICS Resources -> M more options … -> TS Models Summary. Hit S next to a model name to view detailed information.

TRUE monitoring enablement

OMEGAMON already provides details for common TRUEs such as IMS, DB2, or MQ. There are TRUEs for items such as WebSphere Optimized Local Adapters (WOLA) or TCPIP sockets interface. These are not specifically monitored and if a task is hung in one of these it is difficult to tell. To ease monitoring of those types of TRUEs Task history information collection has expanded its level of granularity by including TRUE details.

This feature collects usage information about each Task Related User Exit (TRUE) program which the task has invoked via an application request or for sync-point processing. This will collect the count and elapsed time each exit is in control.

Collected data can be written into Task History and/or SMF 112 type 203. This feature can be enabled in the Global Data Area.

Alternatively, it could be modified dynamically for a region using C for CICS control functions and then using option T “CICS Task Program/TRUE Detail Control”

At the next screen using Modify option you can provide enable or disable TRUE monitoring, as well you can specify where you want to collect this data.

For more information, see the following topics in IBM Documentation:

Product homepage: Link

Product Documentation: Link

What's New in IBM Z OMEGAMON for CICS 5.6.0: Link

#AIOps
#CICS
#IBMZ
#OMEGAMON