CCSS Boosts Visibility of BRMS Restricted State Backups

Published: April 18, 2006

by Alex Woodie

OS/400 shops looking to get a better handle on their restricted state backups may want to check out the latest release of QMessage Monitor, a systems management tool from CCSS. Typically, administrators and operators lack control over OS/400's Backup & Recovery Media Services (BRMS) when it's running in restricted state mode. CCSS addressed this problem by enabling QMessage Monitor to monitor messages and to issue commands to BRMS running in a restricted state.

QMessage Monitor (QMM) is one of three systems management tools from CCSS, a UK-based OS/400 software company with offices in North Carolina, that automates many of the repetitious tasks of iSeries administrators and operators. QMM is designed to filter messages issued by the iSeries server, weed out the trivial and inconsequential messages, and deal with the important ones, either by issuing its own command, or by contacting support personnel. When contacting personnel--which it does by e-mail, pager, SMS messaging, and Windows console alerts--QMM follows an escalation procedure, customized for the user, that directs the product to person after person, until the product is assured that the humans have been duly notified of the iSeries' condition.

However, not all iSeries conditions were reportable via QMM prior to this release. For example, the tool was blind to backups performed using IBM's BRMS tool in a restricted state environment. This caused many a headache for administrators and operators, who had no real-time (or near real-time) way of being informed of problems that invariably crop up during backups, especially on remote machines.

CCSS has addressed this lack of support for restricted state processing with the latest release of QMM, which it unveiled last week. With this release, operators can now bring down an iSeries into restricted state (which is most useful for performing full system saves), monitor the remote iSeries, run procedures, and then bring the remote system back up.

According to CCSS product manager Paul Ratchford, this features is especially useful for customers who can answer yes to the following three questions: Do you use BRMS to perform backups? Do you run BRMS in restricted state mode? Do you need a way to run and monitor BRMS commands running in restricted state mode? "QMM now allows BRMS commands to be run within the QMessage Monitor restricted state environment and to monitor messages being returned by these commands," Ratchford said.

The new feature is especially useful when paired with another CCSS product called QRemote Control, which works with QMM, and lets operators issue OS/400 commands from a GSM-equipped cellular phone. "Should any errors occur, they can be monitored, and answered, without having an operator on site. This reduces support staff costs while ensuring timely and complete backups," Ratchford says.

Pricing for QMessage Monitor starts at $3,000. For more information, visit www.ccssltd.com.