Although SEQUEL executive dashboards are most commonly used to track business indicators, they also can display operations data to help you streamline and improve your System i operations. In fact, a SEQUEL executive dashboard could be a crucial tool if you must comply with Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This article describes how key performance indicators stored in the database files the Robot products maintain can be incorporated into SEQUEL executive dashboards.

Manage job schedules and batch jobs
The sample Robot/SCHEDULE dashboard (below) displays metrics to help you evaluate job scheduling and batch management. It can help you answer many interesting operations questions.

* How automated are the batch jobs on my system? The pie chart (1) and a corresponding list (2) show how many batch jobs are submitted by users compared to how many batch jobs are submitted by Robot/SCHEDULE. You can use this information to judge your progress on automating batch job management. You can drill-down from either of these objects to see which users are submitting their own jobs.

* Are my Robot/SCHEDULE jobs completing successfully? Table 3 and pie chart 4 give you information about the completion status of Robot/SCHEDULE jobs, including normal completion (Complete), abnormal end (Terminated), setup errors (Error Setup), warnings (Warning), and jobs that were skipped because of OPAL programs attached to the job (Skip OPAL).

* What’s happening with my long-running jobs? Jobs with an average run duration of more than 30 minutes are summarized in table 5. This table averages job runs over the past 30 days.

* Have there been any warning events in the last week? Table 6 summarizes warning events over the last seven days, with information on job name, number of events, and message text. A date object or a calendar that is expiring would display.

* How are my jobs set up? Table 7 and graph 8 break out jobs by types including jobs that are on hold, group jobs, reactive jobs, and other (primarily jobs scheduled by date and time). This information gives you an idea of the overall makeup of your schedule. In general, a schedule with a higher percentage of group and reactive jobs is more automated.

Track important message statistics
The Robot/CONSOLE dashboard (below) summarizes a variety of message statistics.

* What volume of messages does the QSYSOPR message queue handle? Table 1 and graph 2 show the number of messages QSYSOPR receives each day.

* How many messages do other monitored queues receive? Table 3 displays a count of messages for each monitored queue. If a queue has an extremely high number of messages, it may indicate a problem. You can drill down into the data to determine the root of the problem.

* What is the message count by message severity? Graph 4 displays summary totals for each message severity level on the QSYSOPR message queue.

* What are the most common message IDs on my system? Are these automated? The Message ID Count summary table (5) shows how many times each message ID was received, along with message text. Messages with a blank message set field indicate common message IDs that have not been set up in Robot/CONSOLE and present automation opportunities.

* How quickly are messages being answered? The Average Response Time summary (6) shows the average response time for the first shift. If it is above the acceptable limit, you should take corrective action.

Design your own Robot dashboards
These are just a few examples of how you can use SEQUEL to create operations dashboards. There are many other possibilities. For example, you could create a different Robot/CONSOLE operations dashboard to identify security errors and resource issues. Or, you might create a Robot/SAVE dashboard to monitor your backup operations.

Dashboards can include almost any imaginable statistic and formatting. They’re easy to customize according to your needs. If you have

SEQUEL and at least one Robot product, you can start tracking your operations metrics right away. Contact SEQUEL Technical Support at 952-933-0609 to request a save file that contains the SEQUEL objects shown in this article.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 9:22 am and is filed under Robot/CONSOLE, Robot/SCHEDULE, SEQUEL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.