Halcyon Goes Mobile with MIMIX Monitoring Tool

July 9, 2013 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops that use MIMIX software can now monitor their high availability environments from a mobile device with the latest release of Halcyon Software‘s HA-MX Monitor. Version 11 of Halcyon’s tool allows administrators to check on the status of MIMIX replication and manage alerts from any iOS and Android smartphone and tablet.

HA-MX Monitor is a little-known member of Halcyon’s suite of systems management and monitoring tools for the IBM i server. The product, which Halcyon has not talked about much over the years, keeps an eye on MIMIX replication processes and errors, freeing administrators to work on other tasks.

With the launch of HA-MX Monitor version 11, Halcyon added support for its Enterprise Console, the centralized GUI that allows customers to view, filter, and respond to messages and alerts generated by a range of Halcyon products for IBM i, Windows, Linux, and AIX, such as backup, scheduling, or performance tools. The Enterprise Console ships as part of all major product bundles, and is available in Windows, Web, and mobile versions.

Part and parcel of the support for Enterprise Console in HA-MX version 11 are the mobile apps for iOS and Android. Available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play store, the mobile app gives customers the capability to view all HA-MX content from a smartphone or a tablet.

Halcyon added the capability to view and manage high availability alerts from the comfort of an iPhone with the latest release of HA-MX Monitor.

“Our product strategy is to ensure, where possible, that users can access their data from wherever they are in the world,” says Donnie MacColl, Halcyon’s technical director. “With this new release of HA-MX for IBM Power Systems, and the centralized user interface with the mobile apps, we are making ‘single point of access’ a reality and enabling MIMIX users to save considerable time.”

HA-MX Monitor keeps a constant watch on MIMIX replication and apply processes. The software is configurable, and allows the user to set thresholds for the alerts. For example, it can be set to send an alert when the Object Apply Backlog gets to a certain point, or the Last Apply Time reaches a specific value.

By tailoring how it generates alerts from MIMIX operations, HA-MX Monitor allows administrators to be notified of only serious problems, and to ignore “transient error conditions” that do not necessarily indicate a serious problem.

Additionally, the software supports the capability to escalate certain alerts according to a customer’s specific procedures. It also gives users the capability to drill-down into status alerts for more information, and can automatically close alerts if an error condition is resolved.

Vision Solutions, which owns MIMIX, obviously provides its own monitoring and management tools for MIMIX. The Vision Solutions Portal (VSP) is a Web-based console that can be used to monitor HA processes on several Vision products. While the product can be pulled on any device that supports a Web browser, the company has not, as yet, launched a dedicated mobile product. Smartphones, in particular, have trouble rendering feature-rich consoles without a degradation in usability.

In addition to the HA-MX Monitor, Halcyon offers a series of templates for other high availability products, including Maxava‘s HA Suite and the Quick-EDD product from Trader’s.

HA-MX Monitor is available in all four levels of Halcyon’s IBM i monitoring suites, including the entry level Message Management Suite (level 1); Systems Operations Suite (level 2); Advanced Automation Suite (level 3); and Operations Center Suite (level 4). The software is also available on a stand-alone basis. For more information, see www.halcyonsoftware.com.