management: Mainframe
Products for Monitoring Composite Applications
Applications that run in more than one application environment,
or access data from more than one database manager present
new challenges. Monitoring performance, solving problems or
future planning of these composite applications will often
require a monitoring product. This article compares the three
main products for applications with z/OS components: ITCAM
for Transactions, BMC Transaction Analyzer and CA Cross Enterprise
APM.
| The traditional 3270 mainframe transaction running in
a single CICS or IMS region is becoming a story of the
“old days” you tell your grandchildren. Today
mainframe applications increasingly access remote resources.
These resources may be transactions, applications or data
in a different region, system or platform. For example,
CICS MRO and DPL allow transactions to call other CICS
transactions in remote regions on any z/OS within a sysplex
or VTAM network. |
CA Cross Enterprise APM Workspace
|
Websphere MQ and SOAP push these boundaries further, giving
transactions access not only to other mainframe applications,
but distributed applications and services as well.
It's not one-way traffic. Companies interested in getting
more from mainframe assets are looking closely at accessing
them from distributed applications. Middleware like IMS Connect
and CICS Transaction Gateway further open up mainframe transactions.
The waters get more muddied with dynamic routing technologies.
These range from dynamic workload sharing with IMS CQS and
CPSM to Enterprise Service Bus products, TCPIP redirection
and Websphere Message Broker. In many cases, it is impossible
to know exactly which application will service each individual
request.
Monitoring these composite applications is a hard ask. The
traditional approach of monitoring at the transaction and
database manager level often isn't enough. Information about
every step of each individual composite unit of work is needed.
IT staff need to know where it went, how it got there, what
processed it, which database managers were accessed, and how
long each step took. In reality, such monitoring without application
program changes needs a commercial composite application monitoring
tool.
For composite applications with a mainframe component, the
three main players are IBMs ITCAM for Transactions, BMCs Transaction
Analyzer, and CAs Cross Enterprise APM. This article takes
a look at these three products.
ITCAM for Transactions
| IBM in the past has had several different Tivoli Composite
Application Manager (ITCAM) products, including: |
 |
- ITCAM for IMS
- ITCAM for CICS
- ITCAM for SOA (for SOAP traffic)
- ITCAM for Websphere (for Websphere Application Server)
- ITCAM for RTT (for end-to-end response time tracking)
Past versions have not worked together, operating in isolation
with their own separate data processing and GUI front-end.
ITCAM for Transactions looks to fix this. It rolls the RTT,
IMS and CICS products together, adding internet service monitoring
and a few other features. It uses IBM's Tivoli
Monitoring (ITM) framework to store, process, archive
and display the data. This gives users a common screen to
see all monitoring information, including that from other
Tivoli products.
ITCAM for Transactions differs from the other products in
that it provides out-of-the-box tracking – no other software
(other than ITM) needed. This out-of-the-box monitoring for
z/OS related components includes IMS, IMS Connect, CICS, CICS
TG, Websphere MQ, and Oracle Tuxedo. Additionally, it covers
Websphere Application Server and SOAP based applications on
z/OS. This extra coverage requires ITCAM for Websphere and
ITCAM for SOA respectively – separately priced products.
Unfortunately, ITCAM for Websphere does not use ITM, and retains
its proprietary data processing and GUI. It's hard to see
IBM allowing this continue for much longer.
Distributed coverage lags a little behind the competition,
including .NET, Websphere Application Server, and ARM-enabled
applications.
Customers lucky enough to have products such as Omegamon
for IMS and Omegamon for CICS can quickly jump to their screens
with the correct context from ITCAM for Transactions workspaces.
Sooner or later users will find composite applications that
use an unsupported way to communicate. This could come from
an unsupported software product, or a home-grown communication
system. Either way, this will create a “blind spot”
when monitoring the application. ITCAM for Transactions is
alone in offering an API to allow users to fill these gaps
for themselves. Languages supported are High Level Assembler,
COBOL, PL/1, Java, and C. Unfortunately, IBM has not included
information to allow these custom solutions to link with data
already obtained by ITCAM for Transactions.
BMC MAINVIEW Transaction Analyzer
| BMCs MAINVIEW Transaction Analyzer monitors mainframe
transactions, including composite application information.
|
 |
BMC aren't giving much away, declining to provide any details
other than brochures available on the web. However from this
evidence, Transaction Analyzer uses other BMC MAINVIEW products
to monitor IMS and CICS transactions. This includes Websphere
MQ and DB2 support. Analysis of response time information
for composite applications can be viewed in 'near real-time.'
Hyperlinks jump to relevant BMC MAINVIEW screens for more
detailed analysis.
BMC also provides some non-mainframe composite application
monitoring using their Transaction Management Application
Response Time– Enterprise Edition product (BMC TM ART).
Designed as an end-to-end availability and response time monitor,
it generates 'synthetic' transactions which are monitored
for performance. However this doesn't help users needing to
monitor production traffic.
BMC say nothing about its ability to display a complete
picture of an entire composite application, raising some doubts.
Screens with topology information, including detail on every
step and how long it took is a prerequisite for any serious
composite application monitor.
BMC supports an impressive array of application environments
and database managers, including Oracle PeopleSoft, Oracle
Tuxedo, Siebel, Oracle Database and DB2. However middleware
technologies such as Websphere MQ, SOAP, or Enterprise Service
Bus products are handled by other products.
The biggest disadvantage is that at these two products currently
do not work together. BMC has no solution to track composite
applications that operate on both mainframe and distributed
platforms. According to BMCs 2006 Transaction Management brochure,
this will be fixed some time in the future.
CA Cross Enterprise APM
| The CA SYSVIEW Performance Management range of products
have monitored CICS and IMS transactions, and CA Datacom
databases for some years now. |
 |
This monitoring currently includes some composite application
information. DB2 related information can be added with CA
Insight for DB2.
On the distributed side, CA Wily Introscope is the product
monitoring composite applications. It covers an impressive
range of application environments including Microsoft .NET,
Oracle Application Server, SAP Netweaver and JBOSS. The base
product can also monitor SOAP applications, and handles Enterprise
Service Bus software like Websphere Enterprise Services Bus
and Oracle Service Bus. Separately ordered Powerpacks add
support for Oracle Database, Websphere Application Server
and Websphere MQ.
CAs brand new Cross Enterprise APM is the glue that brings
these two products together, making CA solutions far more
attractive. With Cross Enterprise APM, CA Wily gets and displays
SYSVIEW information by periodically polling the relevant products.
This allows CA Wily to show information on the complete composite
application on one screen.
Currently, full composite application 'tracing' is only available
for CICS/CICS TG transactions, and needs CA SYSVIEW Performance
Management Event Capture Option and CA SYSVIEW Performance
Management Option for CICS. Tracking of Websphere MQ traffic
on both mainframe and distributed platforms is also fully
supported. IMS Connect support is scheduled for future releases.
Conclusion
There are other products competing in the composite application
monitoring market, including Oracle's Composite Application
Monitor and Modeler (OCAMM) and Sun Java Composite Application
Platform Suite. However mainframe users have a more limited
choice.
BMCs MAINVIEW Transaction Analyzer is limited to IMS and
CICS transactions. This leaves a sizeable gap for customers
looking to monitor applications that operate on both mainframe
and distributed platforms, or those with Websphere Application
Server applications.
CA Cross Enterprise APM has no such limitation for CICS transactions,
connecting the mature CA Wily and CA SYSVIEW products together.
CA Wily would have to win the distributed coverage stakes,
handling an impressive range of application managers and middleware.
IBMs ITCAM for Transactions is refreshing in that it doesn't
require other products (other than ITM) to work out of the
box. However for extended coverage, other Tivoli monitoring
products are required. It is comfortable with applications
that include both mainframe and distributed processing. What's
more, it is the only solution supporting Websphere AS and
SOAP on z/OS. If IBM publish enough information to use its
API for custom solutions, they will have a big advantage for
users with unsupported composite application segments.
Mainframe users will be particularly interested in performance.
Many monitors designed for distributed workloads have suffered
when faced with thousands of mainframe transactions per second.
Mainframe CPU consumption, distributed hardware requirements
and ease of use will also be key issues to ask when considering
these products.
References
The
Challenges Monitoring Composite Applications (Measure
IT: http://www.cmg.org/measureit/issues/mit66/m_66_3.html)
CA
Wily (http://www.ca.com/us/application-management.aspx)
CA
SYSVIEW (http://www.ca.com/us/mainframe-performance-management.aspx)
CA
Cross Enterprise APM Whitepaper (http://www.ca.com/us/whitepapers/collateral.aspx?cid=222160)
ITCAM
for Transactions (http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/composite-application-mgr-transactions/)
BMC
Transaction Analyzer (http://www.bmc.com/products/product-listing/38960322-104305-38960322-104305-2323.html)
BMC
Transaction Management Application Response Time (http://www.bmc.com/products/product-listing/40178106-136055-2866.html)
David
Stephens
Disclaimer: David was a developer with IBM on mainframe components
of ITCAM for Transactions between November 2007 and March
2009.
All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced
in this article belong to their respective companies.
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