Monitoring jobs running on the iSeries server

Scenario

Smith is a iSeries Technology Specialist in an IT organization. He manages and monitors the iSeries infrastructure to ensure that the existing infrastructure runs efficiently and does not cause any system delays.

Current problem: Smith wants to know whether the current job queues are utilized optimally and efficiently. He wants to identify whether there are any damaged or unused job queues and take necessary actions on such infrastructure elements. 

Solution: Smith can use the Job Queue monitor type to quickly get the information that he wants. The Job Queue monitor type provides a couple of attributes that can help him identify the number of jobs in a job queue and the status of the job queue. 

Prerequisites: Let us assume that John, the TrueSight Presentation Server administrator, has already completed the necessary prerequisite tasks to set up the PATROL for iSeries product so that Smith can use the monitor type to view data.

• Define a monitoring policy from the TrureSight console.
• Ensure that you have provided the required user permissions before configuring the KM. 
• Configure the iSeries binaries on the remote host
• Establish a trust relationship between iSeries host and JRE running on the PATROL Agent system
• Configure the PATROL for iSeries product for monitoring. Ensure that Job Queue monitoring is enabled while configuring the KM.
• Grant Smith the required permissions to view the monitored data

Workflow

The following illustration provides a high-level view of the process.

Steps

Smith performs the following steps:

1. Open the Devices page

   1. Log on to the TrueSight console.
   2. In the left navigation pane, click Monitoring > Devices 

2. Select the Device that contains the configured iSeries host

   The Device Details page is displayed. In the Monitors tab, expand the iSeries host to view the configured monitor types.

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3. Select the JobQ monitor. This is a container (Job Queue Container) that holds all Job Queue instances.

   Select the JobQ monitor to view the Collection Status metric. 

   Attribute name	Unit	Description
   Collection Status	0 - OK 1 - ERROR	Reports the collection status of the Job Queue Container (AKN_JOBQ_CONTAINER) monitor type. The status is reported as: 0 - Okay 1 - If any error is encountered while collecting data. Details of the error, probable root cause and the solutions are displayed in the annotation message of the parameter if the value is 1.

   Out of the box thresholds are defined for this attribute. You can view the event details in the Event tab. 

   By default, some columns are hidden. Use the action menu that is located next to the table title to display the hidden columns.
   

4. Expand the Job Queue Container monitor type. Select the Job Queue instance to review the metrics

   The attributes that are marked as default Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are displayed. You can dynamically change the metric or other graph data using the graphing options.

   Attribute name	Unit	Description
   Jobs	#	Displays the number of jobs in the job queue.
   Status	0-Released 1-Held 2-Unassigned 3-Damaged 4-Not Found	Displays the status of the job queue.

   By default, some columns are hidden. Use the action menu  that is located next to the table title to display the hidden columns.