IBM Boosts OS/400 Coverage in Mainframe Utilities

by Alex Woodie

There are many similarities between IBM's iSeries and zSeries servers. Both are built on proprietary architectures, both are renown for their excellent reliability and security, and both have very committed user bases. In fact, a good number of the 20,000 or so mainframe shops in the world are also OS/400 shops. To keep these customers happy, IBM is introducing new Tivoli Omegamon and Rational-branded utilities to enable the testing of new workloads and the monitoring of production systems on iSeries and distributed platforms from the big daddy of servers: the mainframe.

Several weeks ago during the SHARE mainframe conference in Boston, IBM announced its intention to deliver a new Tivoli monitoring services infrastructure that extends the mainframe monitoring capabilities of its Omegamon zSeries tools to enable the end-to-end monitoring of distributed platforms, including OS/400, Unix, Linux, and Windows servers; databases; select server applications; server virtualization software; and even desktop applications--all from a single Tivoli Enterprise Portal interface.

This announcement, which is identified on the IBM Web site as IBM preview announcement 205-188, covered the delivery of a dozen new products spanning Tivoli and Omegamon lines. IBM expects these new products to become generally available sometime during the fourth quarter of 2005.

The actual deliverables will include the version 3.1 release of various Omegamon products, which are the mainframe systems management tools that IBM acquired from Candle earlier this year. This refresh will span Omegamon tools for z/OS, CICS, IMS, DB2, mainframe networks, and storage.

The key component that will bring cross-platform management capabilities to Omegamon users will be Tivoli Monitoring version 6.1. This release will extend the end-to-end management coverage to OS/400, Unix, Windows, and Linux operating systems; the DB2 UDB, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and Sybase databases; Microsoft .NET products (including BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, Content Manager, Host Integration Server, ISA Server, the .NET framework, Sharepoint Portal Server, and UDDI Services); Microsoft Exchange Server; Citrix and VMware environments, and enterprise applications from SAP and Siebel.

To get the benefit of centrally monitoring and managing these disparate mainframe (via Omegamon XE and DE products) and distributed (via Tivoli Monitoring agents) systems, users will also need to license Tivoli Enterprise Console version 3.9. This portal will enable administrators to identify, diagnose, automate, and resolve problems.

In other news, IBM last week announced its new Rational Performance Tester for z/OS software that enables the mainframe to serve as the load generation platform for applications running on other platforms, including the iSeries.

Rational Performance Tester for z/OS can be deployed via the Terminal Based Applications add-on to the Rational Functional Tester product to simulate thousands of 5250 users. Without the Terminal Based Applications add-on, the Rational Functional Tester provides Java and .NET extensions for functional and regression testing applications written in these environments.

IBM says Rational Performance Tester for z/OS is the only product in the marketplace that allows the use of mainframes as the load generation platform to apply stress to Web applications running on distributed systems, including the iSeries. The software can simulate thousands of users simultaneously hitting an application, such as online bill paying or account balance inquiries.