A+View Performance Management Products
Amdahl brings the experience and knowledge of data center
performance management to open systems
To meet the challenges of managing the performance of
distributed open systems, Amdahl announces enhancements and
additions to the A+View(tm) Performance Management product
suite. Based on the Universal Measurement Architecture
(UMA), these products give the performance analyst the tools
to monitor UNIX (r) Systems servers for exception
conditions, and investigate the performance of individual
servers in depth to identify and resolve performance
problems. Amdahl brings the experience and knowledge of data
center performance management to open distributed
environments.
Previously, these open systems ran engineering or scientific
applications. Today's organizations are implementing
mission-critical, revenue producing applications on open
systems platforms. When the performance of these systems is
slow, productivity declines, customers wait, and business
suffers. Performance management is made even more difficult
when hardware and software products are supplied by several
different vendors. To meet the requirements of mission-
critical systems, any solution to managing this new
environment must be robust, extensible, and reliable.
Amdahl's A+View Performance Management software products
suite consists of the A+UMa(tm) Performance Data Manager
A+OpenTune(tm) Performance Monitor, A+OpenWatch(tm)
Distributed Threshold Monitor, are designed to meet these
challenges.
A+UMA supports multiple platforms
Amdahl's A+UMA Performance Data Manager, announced in July
1993 is being extended to run on many open systems
platforms. A+UMA previously supported Solaris(tm),
A+Edition(tm) for Solaris Enterprise Server, UTS(r) System
version 2, and UTS System version 4. A+UMA support is now
extended to AIX/6000, HP-UX and SunOS. A+UMA runs, collects
and manages data on all servers that need the monitoring
function. With this enhancement, Amdahl meets the needs of
the enterprise which uses a heterogeneous, distributed
environment for executing mission-critical workloads.
Leveraging Amdahl's more than 20 years experience in
providing solutions to the largest and most demanding IT
users, Amdahl's UMA-based products are designed to be robust
and reliable. A+UMA's availablity feature restarts key
functions so that data collection continues automatically,
even in the event of a software failure.
A+OpenWatch helps solve productivity problems
AmdahlÆs A+OpenWatch Distributed Threshold Monitor improves
productivity by allowing a single performance analyst to
monitor many A+UMA instrumented servers. A+OpenWatch can
monitor thousands of variables across as many as 100
servers, only notifying the performance analyst when
exception conditions are found.
A+OpenWatch automatically displays the top ten monitored
servers for those user-selected metrics most critical. This
allows the performance analyst to focus on key variables and
servers rather than be overwhelmed with information.
A+OpenTune optimizes performance
A+OpenTune Performance Monitor offers data center level
monitoring capabilities for the distributed heterogeneous
UNIX System environment. With A+OpenTune's intuitive
graphical interface, the performance analyst is able to
quickly pinpoint a bottleneck in a specific server is being
monitored. A+OpenTune delivers nearly 200 metrics of server
performance including CPU, memory, disk, threads, queues,
and others needed to solve performance problems quickly.
UMA accepted by X/Open
All the A+View Performance Management products are based on
the Universal Measurement Architecture (UMA) developed by
the Performance Management Working Group (PMWG), sponsored
by the Computer Measurement Group (CMG). CMG sponsorship
assures that UMA will continue to be focused on collecting
and managing the performance data needed by the users.
Currently the UMA specification has been accepted by X/Open
as a base document and is under review. There are no
competing proposals and many vendors anticipate adoption.
Product highlights
- The UMA standard provides real value to customers in the
quality and quantity of solutions offered to solve critical
performance management issues.
- A+UMA's data collection and management facilities enable
a performance analyst using A+OpenTune to view both
historical and real-time data seamlessly to detect trends
and plan for future system needs.
- A+OpenWatch allows the customer to focus skilled and
expensive staff on preventing performance problems, rather
than watching and waiting for problems to occur.
- A+OpenWatch can also be integrated with an SNMP network
manager to automatically monitor and alert an on-call
systems administrator when there is a potential performance
problem many times before the users are aware.
- A+OpenTune can also be integrated with the A+OpenWatch
to allow the performance analyst to have a detailed look at
conditions on the server that exceeded the threshold.
- A+OpenTune's hypertext-sensitive help function gives the
performance analyst interpretive information on performance
oriented issues to aid in selecting the best corrective
action.
- Sampling intervals in A+OpenTune are user selectable
from seconds to hours to reduce storage requirements.
Exception-based management
With A+OpenWatch, the customer develops a baseline
measurement of the distributed server environment using
A+UMA to collect and manage the data on each server being
monitored. Thresholds can be set for an individual server,
or group of servers. When a threshold is exceeded,
A+OpenWatch can alert the SNMP network manager to
automatically notify the appropriate individual through e-
mail, paging, or other programmable action.
Per process data adds power
Knowing which process is consuming system resources, cpu,
memory, disk or other, is key to optimizing a system's
performance. A+UMA and A+OpenTune combine to collect, manage
and display UNIX System process data. This can allow
performance analysts to identify runaway processes, resolve
problems with concurrent processes, and determine which
processes are taking more than their share of the system.
- A+UMA version 2.1 has added the collection and
management of per process data to the over 150 performance
variables already managed.
- Release 2.1 of the A+OpenTune displays per process data,
helping performance analysts determine which applications
are utilizing most of the serverÆs resources.
Future directions
A+View Performance Management products will be extended,
both in products and methodologies.
- Amdahl will deliver a capacity planning modeling package
that is integrated with and based on the same UMA standard
as the other A+View performance products in the near future.
- Later products will provide tuning advice and
automation, and the collection and management of additional
data types including network, middleware and application
data.
Support and service
Support and service for the A+View Performance Management
products is provided by Amdahl's customer services
organization. The Amdahl Worldwide Customer Support Centers
and other Amdahl Customer Support organizations have a 20-
year history of outstanding services performance for the
worldÆs premier users of information technology. This
history of services performance, combined with the
comprehensive services infrastructure that Amdahl has
developed, means that customers receive exceptional value
when choosing any level of Amdahl services support.
Other A+ software products
The A+ brand of data center quality software and middleware
is designed to support mission-critical applications within
a large-scale distributed environment. Other A+ software
products include operating system enhancements, storage
management, security and information management. The A+
brand assures the buyer of Amdahl's worldwide customer
support and quality reputation. Amdahl also offers hardware
products, operating systems, educational services, and
consulting services for open distributed environments.
Product requirements
- A+UMA or other UMA-compliant software must be running on
each monitored server.
- A+OpenTune requires 10 MB free disk space. 24 MB of
memory; 32 MB recommended.
- A+OpenWatch requires 16 MB of main memory, and 5 MB free
disk space.
Availability/Delivery
A+UMA for Solaris 2.3, A+ Edition, UTS2 and UTS4 is
available today. A+UMA for AIX/6000 version 9.0.1 and
higher, HP-UX version 3.2 and higher, and SunOS version
4.1.3 will be available in late 1994.
A+OpenTune and A+OpenWatch runs on any SPARC(r) workstation
running Solaris Version 2.3 or higher. A+OpenTune is
available today. A+OpenWatch will be available in October,
1994.
For more information
To obtain prices, terms and conditions, and additional
information, please contact your local Amdahl
representative.
Amdahl and UTS are registered trademarks and the A+logo,
A+View, A+UMA, A+OpenTune, A+OpenWatch and A+Edition are
trademarks of Amdahl Corporation.
UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and
other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company
Limited. X/Open and the X device are trademarks of X/Open
Company Ltd. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International,Inc.
Solaris is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
The information in this document may be superseded by
subsequent documents. For details regarding the delivery of
specific products, features, and services, contact your
local Amdahl representative.
(c) 1994 Amdahl Corporation. All rights reserved. MM001954-001