Tango/04 Provides a VISUAL Clue into Server Performance

by Alex Woodie

Companies struggling to keep the performance of their Windows, Unix, Linux, and iSeries applications in-line with service level agreements (SLAs) may want to check out Tango/04 Computing Group's VISUAL Control for Windows 9, which the Spanish software developer launched earlier this month. This release brings additional Windows server-monitoring and -control capabilities, adds support for SNMP devices, including Unix and Linux servers, and let's administrators monitor it all from a single console.

VISUAL Control for Windows is a systems management tool aimed at helping administrators spot performance problems before they impact users. The software provides a graphical "cockpit" where administrators can monitor a variety of metrics for iSeries and Windows servers in real-time. It also sends out alerts using e-mail and SMS and houses historical performance data, which lets administrators drill down into this data and generate reports.

The VISUAL Control for Windows suite is capable of tracking more than 2,000 different metrics on multiple computing platforms through a variety of plug-ins, including VISUAL Control for Jobs, VISUAL Control for Pools, VISUAL Control Performance Planner (a capacity-planning tool), and VISUAL Control LPAR Tuner, an offering specifically for OS/400 logical partitioning, or LPAR.

For iSeries, VISUAL Control for Windows tracks CPU, DASD, and memory use; jobs and response times; and communication, system, and user variables. For each of these performance metric categories, the software offers several views. For DASD, as an example, it tracks storage as a percent, storage in GB, and storage by auxiliary storage pool (ASP). In Windows, these preconfigured performance metrics are displayed in colorful, informative graphs, several of which are tiled across the main cockpit screen. All of the graphs and views are customizable.

With Version 9, Tango/04 has bolstered the product's Windows server-management capability with support for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), an API that's provided by Microsoft in the Windows operating system. WMI is used to accomplish a variety of tasks in the Windows environment, including starting and stopping services, terminating processes, creating new processes, and other activities.

The new version also brings support for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), another management protocol that's used by a wide array of devices, including servers, applications, and networking, security, and environmental-monitoring equipment. Tango/04 is supporting SNMP through its ALEV scripting technology, which it says lets enables users develop scripts, set variables, and specify requirements, thresholds, and alert conditions for monitoring any SNMP device, including Linux, Unix, and AIX servers.

Finally, version 9 allows administrators to monitor multiple iSeries, Windows, Unix, and Linux servers from a single management console. "Our product has evolved into a fully customizable performance management solution," says Raul Aguirre, Tango/04's chief executive. "The powerful programming tools in version 9 simplify the alignment of VISUAL Control for Windows with the business scenario and infrastructure components of each company."

VISUAL Control for Windows version 9 is available now. For more information, visit www.tango04.com.