CCSS, a developer of systems monitoring software, has announced a new Job Run Time monitor now being added to its performance monitoring and reporting solution, QSystem Monitor. System managers responsible for Power Systems running IBM i and System i servers, can now benefit from real-time identification of the jobs on the system that breach their anticipated run times.

Paul Ratchford, product manager for CCSS says, "The new Job Run Time monitor is particularly powerful as it addresses the complete issue of long running jobs and stops it in its tracks before it has an opportunity to cause additional problems that resonate throughout the system or network. Real-time identification and immediate access to work with a particular job affords managers the most efficient path to resolution. Investigation time is eliminated and that's very valuable for environments that are expected to perform at optimum levels on a 24/7basis," he says. 

The benefits of the new monitor will be wide-ranging as long running jobs can act as a catalyst triggering a number of serious issues that could impact the user community and critical business processes, the company says. Batch and dependant jobs are among those most vulnerable to these types of concerns. For example, a daily backup could be prevented from running as it is dependent on a critical job that ran long. This would mean there was no backup before the next day's processing began and would undermine compliance to important, and in some cases legal, regulations such as SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) or PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). Alternatively, users could be prevented from starting their work until the backup had run, impacting productivity and availability of vital resources. Similarly, there may be instances of cross-machine dependencies where job A on machine A is required to run prior to job B on machine B. In a distributed networked environment, this could see the same type of delays and problems replicated across multiple groups of users or even different geographical locations.

The complexity of job schedulers means jobs can run at any time. Without dedicated, real-time monitoring capabilities, it would be very labor intensive and difficult, if not impossible, to keep a constant vigil on the actual run time of these important jobs. Now managers can tackle this challenge directly. Once they have identified the expected run time, critical jobs are subject to the same proactive "management by exception" principles that govern all monitors in CCSS solutions.

If jobs run longer than they should, managers are alerted to the issue in real time through a flashing red bar on the online monitor that gives essential details such as which subsystem the jobs are running in and the actual run time of the first job that has breached its defined run time parameter. This visual alert can be supported with a number of audio and/or escalated email/pager/mobile phone alerts to ensure that situations such as this are never missed by the systems team, regardless of the time of day. Managers can right-click on the bar to create a new "details view" on the issue that will speed up resolution time. This view is particularly efficient as only jobs exceeding their run times are shown, thus reducing the amount of data sent back to the central system for each sample. From the details view, each job is shown as a separate element with associated information to pinpoint it exactly on the system; associated information includes its system, job, number, user, status and actual run time in minutes. A simple right-click on the individual job allows managers to work directly with that job to resolve the issue, dramatically reducing the potential for an issue like this to impact the user community or other dependant jobs or processes.

The Job Run Time monitor is available to existing QSystem Monitor customers in V.12.5 which also includes new features such as the recently announced real-time disk collection, largest object and largest library monitors.

For more information on QSystem Monitor, visit: http://www.ccssltd.com/products/qsystem-monitor/

About CCSS

CCSS develops, supports and markets IBM i (on Power Systems & System i servers) performance monitoring and reporting, message management and remote management solutions. An Advanced IBM Business Partner, CCSS develops powerful solutions to support some of the world's most demanding IBM i environments across many industries including insurance, banking, pharmaceutical and manufacturing. Existing customers that rely on CCSS's feature-rich solutions include leading organizations such as Volvo, Mattel, Newell-Rubbermaid, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Siemens Healthcare, RWE npower and Waterstone's.

CCSS is headquartered in Gillingham, Kent, UK with key regional headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Bonn, Germany and Makati City, Philippines together with a global agent network spanning Austria, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden.