AOS System Manager and Accounting Manager
AOS System Manager provides facilities for managing and monitoring all
aspects of iSeries system resources, including file archiving, object
archiving and standard maintenance procedures - in other words what system
resources are being used. Working closely with this module is AOS Accounting
Manager, which provides information to enable the IT department to charge
user departments accurately for the use of its resources - in other words,
to identify who is using the resources.
Benefits
- Early warning of potential system problems through automatic health
checking facility and disk utilisation reports
- More proactive system management facilitated through on-line monitoring
of system activity
- More efficient management of archiving and data retrieval
- Accurate charging of user departments for use of IT resources
- Improved analysis of system trends, enabling more effective planning
to circumvent future problems
- More effective management of disk space through handling of redundant
objects
- Reduced risk of system problems in the course of OS/400 upgrades,
through storage of amended command defaults
AOS System Manager Highlights
Automatic health checking facility
System Manager incorporates a range of system health monitors which check
that the system is functioning correctly and that specified conditions
relating to system running are met. The module carries out checks on communications
distribution queues, job queues, output queues, jobs and subsystems. The
monitoring can be very selective, for example, checking that particular
system communications are functioning and checking that certain job queues
do not contain more than a specified number of jobs. If a problem is detected,
the 'health checker' can automatically take pre-defined actions, such
as call a program, execute a command or send a message to one or more
users.
Database archive control
A number of facilities are available to make the process of archiving
and retrieving data much easier to manage.
Archiving routines allow a systems manager to specify the database files
which require records to be archived and the appropriate routines which
need to be initiated. AOS System Manager prompts for record selection
criteria which can include identification of objects which have been unused
for a pre-defined period. This means that redundant objects can be reported
upon and disk space managed more effectively.
The archiving routines can then be executed interactively or in batch,
or scheduled to run automatically by AOS Scheduling Manager.
Records which have been archived may be restored to another file or
back to the originating file, with the option of having the associated
logical files recreated.
Comprehensive disk usage reports
Reports are available to analyse disk utilisation and monitor files and
objects. Reports will identify those files with a high percentage of deleted
records, enabling them to be reorganised.
Additional facilities will analyse objects over a certain size threshold
for storage and comparison over time. This means that disk storage problems
can be resolved proactively not reactively.
Automation of standard housekeeping tasks
Other tools within the module assist in the maintenance of system resources
such as journal receivers, message queues, history and problem logs. In
addition, amended command defaults can be stored so that they can easily
be reapplied when the operating system is upgraded.
AOS Accounting Manager Highlights
Monitoring of total environment usage
AOS Accounting Manager takes account of usage of key system resources
such as CPU time, disk storage, disk I/O, spool and printing jobs, to
give an accurate picture of total usage patterns across the organisation.
Flexible, user-defined structure
The database and reporting hierarchies can be user-defined with tools
provided to assist in the building of a structured accounting code, which
can then be applied to users and jobs. In complex environments, reporting
can be simplified by using the accounting code to group users into cost
centres.
Charging of system resource usage
For accounting purposes, charge bands can be assigned to key system resources,
such as CPU time, disk utilisation, disk I/O and lines of spooled print.
The accumulated values can then be included in reports. This makes it
possible for user groups to be charged appropriately for all of the system
resources they use.
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