Bytware’s Messenger Syncs Up Monitoring

September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

Bytware is shipping version 8.1 of its message management products, MessengerConsole and MessengerPlus. The new release is aimed at ensuring that the various monitoring jobs and schedules are kept in sync across complex environments.

The Messenger products automate IBM i operations by continuously monitoring message queues, logs, and journals for critical messages that could indicate failed jobs or backups, security breaches, printer or network errors, or problems with a high availability product.

With version 8.1, Bytware says that MessengerConsole can now target “a specific system or systems for monitor synchronization.” This ensures that monitors can be sent to specific servers without impacting other servers or devices on the network.

Bytware is also enabling MessengerConsole to centralize the distribution of monitoring schedules to other servers in a network. Configuring the schedule once and then sending it out to remote systems not only saves time, but it ensures that all the systems stay in sync with the master system, the company says.

IBM i shops that use a Unix-based syslog server will also find new functionality in Messenger 8.1. With this release, MessengerConsole can send events and messages to a Unix syslog server, thereby maintaining centralized management of the log collection and reporting processes.

Bytware also improved the email formatting that’s available with Messenger. (The product can be configured to automatically send emails when certain messages or logs are generated on the monitored systems.) By giving users more control over how the emails look on target devices, it enables help desk personnel to better react to unforeseen events.

“Our focus with Messenger 8.1 is to provide better integration between Messenger and other event-collection tools,” says Bytware product support manager Heather Beck. “By reformatting alerts sent out to help desk applications and sending out security-related information to syslog servers, Messenger can build upon the tools already in place and work in conjunction with them to expedite notification of critical events.

The new features in version 8.1 mostly apply to MessengerConsole, which is the more full-featured product that’s designed for multi-server (or multi-LPAR) environments. MessengerPlus, by contrast, is designed for single-system environments. MessengerConsole also provides the capability to remotely monitor and centrally manage Messenger activities and responses.