AS400 Monitored Jobs Test

Sometimes, administrators may only want to monitor a specific set of jobs for the purpose of analyzing the critical performance of the target server and troubleshooting the issues such as resource contention. This purpose can be easily achieved using the AS400 Monitored Jobs test. This test lets administrators to set a pattern to filter out and monitor the jobs of their choice. The pattern can be defined using the User name, Job Name, Job Type and/or Sub System parameters. To define a pattern, administrators can specify all of these parameters or anyone of these parameters or the combination of these parameters. This test will therefore only monitor the jobs that are added on the basis of the pattern defined by administrators.

Note:

To add the jobs for monitoring by this test, administrators should configure at least one of the User name, Job Name, Job Type and/or Sub System parameters.

This test auto-discovers the jobs according to a specific pattern that has been configured by administrators. For each pattern, this test reports the following metrics:

the number of active jobs;
the number of jobs held in the queues;
the number of threads required to perform the jobs;
how long the CPU resources were utilized by the jobs;
the amount of temporary storage allocated for executing the jobs.

This way, administrators are alerted to slowness in processing the jobs, a processing bottleneck on the queues and the CPU resource contention created when the jobs use the resources for a prolonged time. Thus, administrators can initiate the remedial measures before the users complaint about any performance lag.

Target of the test : An AS400 Server

Agent deploying the test : An external/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every pattern configured by administrators.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.
Port	The port at which the specified host listens. By default, this is NULL.
ServerName	This test connects to the AS400 server being monitored to extract the required metrics. Therefore, specify the name of the AS400 server to connect to in the ServerName text box.
UserID	To enable the test to login to the specified AS400 server, you need to provide the test with the credentials of a valid user to the AS400 server. Hence, specify a valid userID.
Password	Provide the Password that corresponds to the specified UserID.
Confirm Password	Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.
Job Name	In the Job Name text box, specify the job names to be monitored, in any one of the following formats: Description:fullyQualJobName, Description:partiallyQualJobName, fullyQualifiedJobName and partiallyQualifiedJObName. Here, Description refers to the display name of the job pattern that will appear as a descriptor of this test in the eG monitoring console. Pattern can be the full name of the job, or can include wild cards. For instance, to monitor all jobs that begin with the string GLNK, your Job specification would be: DMIRROR:GLNK. Note that your job patterns cannot include wild card characters in the middle or at the beginning - i.e., for the example above, your specification cannot be: DMIRROR:GLNK or DMIRROR:G*LNK. Multiple job patterns can be provided as a comma-separated list.
User Name	Specify the name of the user whose jobs should be added for monitoring. The user name should be a fully qualified name of the user on the AS400 server. By default, this is set as none indicating that this test will monitor the jobs from all users.
Job Type	Sometimes, administrators may want to monitor only a particular type of jobs. To achieve this, administrators should enter the type of the jobs to be monitored in the Job Type text box. To monitor more than one type of jobs, specify the job types in a comma-separated list - for instance, Autostart,Batch,Interactive. You can even provide the job types in the following format: Autostart,Batch. By default, this is set as none indicating that this test will report metrics for the jobs of all types.
Sub System	In order to monitor the print jobs from a specific sub system, administrators should specify the name of that particular sub system against the Sub System parameter. Administrators can also monitor the jobs from multiple subsystems by specifying the names of the subsystems in a comma-separated list in the Sub Sytem text box. By default, this is set as none indicating that this test will monitor the jobs running in all the subsystems.
Job Limit	By default, 1000 is set as the Job Limit. This implies that the test will report the metrics only for the 1000 jobs performed during the measurement period. If required, you can change the value of this parameter.
DD Frequency	Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD frequency.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Active	Indicates the number of active jobs that match this pattern.	Number
Job queue	Indicates the number of jobs, that are submitted, but made to wait in a queue before they could begin running.	Number	A very high value of this measure is a cause for concern, and would require investigation.
Out queue	Indicates the number of jobs, held in the output queue, to be sent to a subsystem.	Number
Total threads	Indicates the number threads utilized to perform the jobs that match this pattern.	Number	Ideally, the value of this measure should be high. A significant decrease in the value of this measure shows that the jobs are being executed slowly. As a result, the system performance will be degraded and the user experience will be affected.
Total CPU time used	Indicates the CPU time used to perform the jobs that match this pattern.	Secs	Ideally, the value of this measure is preferred to be low. A high value indicates that the jobs are utilizing the CPU resources for longer duration. This may lead to CPU resource contention on the server.
Total temporary storage	Indicates the amount of temporary storage allocated for the jobs that match this pattern.	MB