ManageEngine Adds i OS Support to Application Performance Tool

December 1, 2009 Alex Woodie

ManageEngine, an Indian developer of systems management software, expanded its i OS repertoire last month with the launch of Applications Manager Release 9. Users of the new software can monitor applications and systems running on IBM i OS servers alongside a range of other operating systems, databases, application servers, and ERP systems. This provides organizations that use System i and Power Systems servers with a powerful solution for monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, trend analysis, and planning capacity in their heterogeneous IT environments.

In the olden days of IT, when organizations ran monolithic business applications on a single server, troubleshooting performance problems was a fairly straightforward process. If an application was acting up, a programmer could access all of the needed resources–be it source code, data, or message logs–from one system, and feel confident that they haven’t overlooked the source of the problem.

Compare that to the modern n-tier IT infrastructure of today. A single Web application might access resources residing across multiple servers, operating systems, application servers, and sundry other middleware components, which significantly complicates the monitoring and troubleshooting processes. Add any service oriented architecture (SOA) or Web services components to the mix, and the complexity grows even more. Without the help of a power tool, it’s very difficult to track down performance problems with speed and certainty–or catch hiccups before they turn into big problems.

ManageEngine makes such power tools. The vendor–which seeks to be the low-cost alternative to the “Big Four” systems management vendors BMC Software, CA, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM–develops a range of tools designed to monitor various aspects of the data center, from individual servers and networking components to open source server software and proprietary ERP applications. Applications Manager offers the deepest level of monitoring into application-specific functionality.

With the mid-November launch of ManageEngine Application Manager Release 9, the software vendor added support for i OS, as well as support for Oracle‘s flagship ERP offering, E Business Suite, and a new capability that allows administrators to customize dashboards within the product.

Support for i OS gives users the capability to automatically monitor and manage various aspects of the platform, including: the number of active and waiting jobs; batch jobs versus interactive jobs; storage pools and LPARs; memory and disk utilization; the QSYSOPR message queue; the number of users signed onto the system; spool file and printer output; and other metrics that are unique to the platform.

This data is gathered from the System i (using native IBM APIs, according to ManageEngine) and presented in a Web console, alongside data from all of the other supported operating systems, databases, Web application servers, middleware, and run-time environments (such as .NET and J2EE).

From this console, administrators can monitor more than 100 different metrics that pertain to their n-tier applications infrastructure, including response time, availability, CPU utilization, and others. These metrics are presented holistically, and reflect data gathered from across the IT infrastructure.

Administrators can also set thresholds for these various metrics, and if they’re exceeded, the product will automatically alert an administrator through e-mail or other means. The product also provides root cause analysis functionality to track down problems, and capacity planning capabilities.

Applications Manager can also be set to proactively manage certain elements of i OS that are typically handled by operators, such as setting system or security settings, according to Gibu Mathew Kurian, ManageEngine product manager. The software also provides a “non-interactive Web console,” where administrators can access i OS directly through a 5250 interface. “It’s for the administrator to do something that’s not provided by us out of the box,” Kurian says.

Kurian expects about five to 10 percent of the 2,000 customers of Applications Manager to buy the AS/400 “add-on” pack. “There is fairly good demand, definitely not as high as the Unix and Windows world. But I would say we have a lot of customers who also have AS/400s,” he says.

Applications Manager already supports the monitoring of popular IT components, including Windows, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, Mac OS, Tru64, and Free BSD operating systems; Oracle, MySQL, Sybase, SQL Server, and DB2 databases; WebSphere, WebLogic, JBoss, Tomcat, Microsoft .NET, Oracle Application Server SilverStream, and GlassFish Web application servers; Apache, IIS, PHP, Web services, Web server, and Web site monitoring; Oracle EBS and SAP ERP monitoring; various Windows components, including Windows event log, Exchange, and Active Directory; and other IT components, including LDAP, FTP, DNS, JMX, and SNMP.

The AS/400 add-on (as it is called) is available for $1,195. Other add-ons range from $795 for the WebSphere MQ monitor to $1,995 for the SAP monitor. Customers can use the AS/400 add-on with either the professional (starts at $795 with a limit of 250 monitored operating system instances) or enterprise (starts at $7,995 with no monitoring limit) editions. There is also a free version of Applications Manager that can be used for basic monitoring of up to five operating system instances. For more information, see www.manageengine.com.

ManageEngine Goes On Demand with Data Center Tools

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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