TCP/IP is at the core of the communication for the z/OS mainframe, both for communication between the z/OS images and processor complexes, and for traffic to and from the mainframe. Monitoring TCP/IP is important for:
- Performance – Is the workload properly balanced across the available interfaces?
- Network health – Are there errors as a result of physical or logical configuration issues?
- Security – Are encrypted connections always being used as expected?
Understand Traffic Patterns | Protect System Availability
IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS provides insight in the use of the physical interfaces, including the OSA channels and the new HiperSockets that are used for communication between LPARs. The traffic can be analyzed from different perspectives:
- address space (socket)
- port number (protocol)
- physical interface
Active TCP Connections chart: Shows the average number of active TCP connections by port number for a specific CEC.
The reporting also covers system-wide health metrics, like the availability of sufficient ephemeral (dynamic) ports in the pools for UDP and TCP/IP address spaces, or unexpected network errors. Just like for other aspects of the z/OS infrastructure, dashboards are used to summarize the results of the network health checks. You will no longer be surprised by a lack of ephemeral ports capacity or fabric issues.
Customer Experience from one of our early users said
The TCP/IP reports provide a lot of useful information and in some instances we now have the ability to better understand our interfaces and their usage, which is something we have never had in the past.”
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Experience firsthand the deepest visibility into your z/OS systems, processors, network, disk and tape environments. Whether you’re in the early stages of product research, evaluating competitive solutions, or trying to solve a problem, we’re happy to help you get the information you need to move forward with your IT initiatives.
Supported Areas in IntelliMagic Vision for z/OS Systems
Monthly License Charges (MLC)
Tune your processor configuration to increase the MIPS you get out of your mainframe hardware.
Learn MoreCoupling Facility
Configure Coupling Facilities for optimal availability and proactively identify hidden health and performance risks
Learn MoreDb2
See Buffer Pool imbalances and proactively identify upcoming risks to your Db2 health and performance
Learn MoreCICS Transactions
Save time looking for problems and profile CICS transaction data and see transaction response time
Learn MorezEDC Cards
Ensure sufficient capacity and consistent performance for IBM zEDC availability.
Learn MoreTCP/IP
Monitor the health of your TCP/IP and analyze traffic from different perspectives.
Learn MoreRelated Content
z/OS TCP/IP Encryption Compliance Analysis
Security policies and standards such as FIPS-140-2 require data transmissions to be encrypted with specific standards. Ensuring and proving encryption compliance on mainframes is of course, as important as it is for other platforms.
zERT: Breakthrough in Visibility for Managing Encryption of Network Traffic
This article, originally published in Cheryl Watson’s Tuning Letter 2019 No. 4, provides a great introduction to zERT and ways to increase the benefit you can derive from this data.
Mainframe Security’s Latest Tool for Ensuring Encryption Standards are Met
zERT data can enable the mainframe security team to both evaluate ongoing adherence to security policies and programmatically provide data for required reporting to auditors and compliance officers.
Other Supported Environments
z/OS Disk and Replication
Early warning system that automatically identifies I/O issues in the making in your disk storage system and replication architecture.
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z/OS Virtual Tape
Performance and availability management for Virtual and Physical Tape, with specific support for IBM TS7700 and Oracle VSM tape solutions.
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SAN Storage and Fabric
IntelliMagic Vision collects performance and configuration information on the VMware, fabric and storage systems to provide a complete and end-to-end picture.
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