Hot Topics - Messmer The Brain House

Figure 2 - Relationship between the components of a domain policy
EWLM will apply to the EWLM
domain.
• Operating: You can display the
operational state of EWLM and of
each server in a management domain,
as well as trigger activities that alter
operational states. You can query the
identity of the service policy that is
currently in effect for the management
domain and initiate activation of a
specific service policy by policy name.
• Monitoring: EWLM tracks and
monitors work as it flows from one
application or server to another,
regardless of operating system. It
monitors application-level transactions,
operating system processes, or both.
EWLM provides the most granular
performance data when it monitors
application-level transactions because
the applications use the Open Group’s
Application Response Measurement
(ARM) 4.0 standard APIs. These
APIs are your mechanic’s true
diagnostic tools—they allow EWLM
to monitor a transaction as it hops
from one application to another to
continue processing. This allows
you to determine at which hop a
performance problem exists.
Manage your fleet: Application
instrumentation with ARM 4.0
To ensure that work requests are
performing as expected in a multi-tiered
heterogeneous server environment, you
must be able to identify work requests
based on business importance, track the
performance of those requests across server
and subsystem boundaries, and manage
the underlying physical and network
resources used to achieve specified
performance goals. You can collect this
data by using versions of middleware that
have been instrumented with the ARM 4.0
standard.
ARM 4.0 provides interfaces that are
first called by an application and then
used by EWLM to calculate the response
time and status of work processed by
the application. EWLM is responsible
for aggregating and reporting the data
collected from each managed server in a
particular management domain. Using a
standard, such as the ARM 4.0 interfaces,
allows an operating environment,
regardless of platform, to leverage the same
set of base measurements.
Brief your drivers: Domain policies
A domain policy specifies performance
goals for work processed in the EWLM
domain. Each domain policy contains the
following elements:
• Application definitions, which provide
transactions for EWLM to monitor.
• Platform definitions (optional), which
provide operating system processes for
EWLM to monitor.
• Transaction classes, which identify
application-level transactions for
EWLM to monitor.
• Process classes (optional), which
identify operating system processes for
EWLM to monitor.
• Partition classes (optional), which
identify partitions for EWLM to
monitor.
• Performance goals defined in
service classes that correspond to
your business objectives or business
partners' service level agreements.
• Multiple service policies, if you want
to change a service class goal from
one service policy to another.
Figure 2 shows the relationship between a
domain policy’s components.
Start your engines: Incorporate
EWLM into your environment
So, have we inspired you to satisfy your
need for speed? If you’re interested
in implementing EWLM in your own
heterogeneous environment, race on over
to the IBM Systems Software Information
Center (publib.boulder.ibm.com/
infocenter/eserver/v1r2/index.jsp) for more
information. Enjoy the ride!
I never knew that
mainframes were so widely used
throughout the whole world!
Van Landrum,
University of South Alabama
February 2006 z/OS HOT TOPICS Newsletter, Issue 14 47