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Halcyon Software launches Operations Center V3.0 software for IBM i
Major new release enables IBM customers to cut operational costs
Date Posted: May 03, 2010
Halcyon Software Inc., a global leader in systems management, today announced the launch of its flagship solution for the monitoring and automation of IBM Power Systems supporting the IBM "i” operating system. The new modules contained within Halcyon Operations Center v 3.0 provides administrators with advanced job scheduling, system message handling, automation of manual tasks, performance, disk and spooled file management as well as updated graphical user interfaces, and additional reporting. The product also ships with more templates to cover the monitoring of typical ERP business applications such as JDE, Lawson and SAP as well as high availability solutions.
Designed to appeal to managed services companies and individual data centers, this cost-effective and feature rich systems management software addresses real business needs, particularly with companies needing to reduce operational costs and prove return on investment to senior management.
Operations Center v3.0 is capable of monitoring multiple IBM i systems in a very demanding environment, freeing up valuable resource time, and minimizing the risk of human error.
The new software also has improved audit trails with security journaling to maintain application integrity.
All of the individual software modules have been significantly updated, these include:
PERFORMANCE ANALYZER MODULE
A major new module is Performance Analyzer; a dynamic dashboard allowing administrators to view and manage an unlimited number of partitions (LPARs) via the modernized GUI display.
The user interface has flexible configuration options allowing bespoke views to be created and includes an auto-cycle function of multiple systems or LPARs to provide continuous monitoring.
The new Performance Analyzer module also has “auto scaling,” a dynamic auto learning feature. For example if a system has uncapped processors and usage rises above 100 percent, the graph on display will instantly and dynamically auto scale to accommodate the increase and dynamically shrink again when the usage reduces. The new dashboard has been written to Microsoft Windows standards which encompasses the latest Windows technologies.
Performance graphs displayed on screen enable administrators to drill down to individual job level to identify resource hungry jobs or users.
Companies can select performance statistics that are important to their operations and choose to have these displayed on screen for example, CPU, ASP%, pool transitions, jobs, batch jobs and response times. Individual users can also create their own tailored views of performance statistics.
ADVANCED JOB SCHEDULING MODULE
The advanced job scheduling module contained in Operations Center v3.0 is the most comprehensive scheduler available in the marketplace for software specifically supporting IBM Power Systems technology.
It provides multiple LPAR and cross -platform scheduling capabilities. Jobs can be scheduled to run on IBM i, Windows, AIX, UNIX and Linux systems or any other systems that have a remote executing daemon.
Jobs are organized into groups that use a common schedule and can run either sequentially or concurrently within their group. The software can cater for multiple job dependencies, where complex job sequences need to complete before other jobs can be initiated.
Notification options keep you informed of the progress of important jobs and processes.
In addition, the software is shipped with flexible calendar options and customizable parameters. Users can import jobs from other basic schedulers so that everything can be consolidated into Operations Center v3.0.
DISK SPACE MANAGEMENT MODULE
Important enhancements to the disk space management module include reports scheduling and the ability to output data to the IFS or into Excel or CSV formats. Multiple IBM i systems or LPARs can be viewed through the color-coded graphical user interface providing a centralized view of your internal and external enterprise wide storage systems from a single screen.
The ability to check the percentage of deleted records in files and automatically reorganize them is included as standard. System administrators can identify files that haven’t been saved across a pre-defined time frame, or have never been saved and objects that have missing or out of date source. Historical growth of objects can be monitored so that users can be alerted by a console message, SMS or email if unexpected growth occurs or pre-defined thresholds are breached. Users can perform comprehensive trend analysis using point and click technology via the GUI or if they prefer from the Halcyon IBM i menu options. Disk space can now be analyzed to the granular level of “member”. The ability to group objects means you can analyze and report at an application level or by project, department or client.
SPOOLED FILE MANAGEMENT MODULE
The spooled file management module provides easy archiving, distribution and general
housekeeping of spooled files. The new software can now cater for spooled files in excess of a million pages and there is also an uncapped limit of the number of spooled files per output queue.
Administrators can now email spooled files as Excel or CSV files or as a PDF.
The software is shipped with comprehensive scripting templates that enable users to split files by criteria (e.g. account number or department).
The spooled file manager component has its own scripting language which allows users to create their own scripts to suit their specific operations.
MESSAGE MANAGEMENT MODULE
The improved message handling effectively automates an organization’s response to a given situation and templates for business application monitoring means that companies can deploy and implement the solution and gain real operational benefit within minutes of installation.
REPORTING
Reporting has been improved and extended across all of the software modules contained within Halcyon’s Operations Center v 3.0. The product is shipped with standard reports or users can customize their own reports.
Another enhancement is the comprehensive service level agreement reporting tool and system “uptime” tool that shows subsystem availability allowing users to monitor multiple subsystems, at regular intervals. These, combined with “out-of-the-box” monitoring and alerting templates, which are shipped as standard, allows customers to automate their operations within hours of installation.
ENTERPRISE CONSOLE MODULE
Operations Center v3.0 is shipped with a user interface , the Enterprise Console, which enables centralized systems management allowing a user to have a single dashboard view of their entire infrastructure, regardless of location.
The new software is designed so that users can install, test and configure the software without affecting their live environment. Enhanced scheduling of resources also allows customers to emulate company working schedules, across multiple time zones.
Donnie MacColl, Halcyon’s Technical Services Director said “Over the last 18 months we have made a significant investment by embarking on a major modernization program for our range of products for IBM i. Operations Center v3.0 is the flagship solution and completes the final phase of the project. We created new software modules to take advantage of the latest IBM APIs and to ensure that we continue to support the forward direction of IBM Power Systems including the new Power 7 technology.”
MacColl added, “We pushed the boundaries of programming techniques to get the best out of the IBM development tools. More importantly we had the opportunity to consult with our customers and added new enhancements to solve their current and future operational challenges. In response to their important feedback we made the software as intuitive as possible, introduced more templates to ensure it can be swiftly deployed and made administration much easier, especially with the new GUIs. Administrators can still navigate conventional and familiar menu options for managing their IBM i, but with the Halcyon’s new framework, dashboards and interfaces the software has a broader appeal.”
SunGard Public Sector is a major provider of software and consulting solutions for clients in the public sector and uses Halcyon Software in its data centers.
Sue Dumas, Technical Project Manager, SunGard Public Sector said, “We specifically like Halcyon’s software because it’s intelligent and it emulates what a computer operator would do. We are now worry free about the stability of our hosted solutions because our systems are monitored 24/7 and we are notified immediately if there are any problems.” |
