A
System i is very useful. You can put your coffee cups on
it or the stack of IT magazines you've already read but
think you might reread
at a later point when you've forgotten
the precise text of all articles. But due to the ongoing
shrinkage of all-things-hardware, you can't fit too many
coffee cups or magazines on your System i anymore. There
is, however, another way in which the System i can be
quite useful: to perform Work.
Work
is an ominous force that can impact one's day in quite
an unpleasant manner. This is why we invented machines.
The idea was that machines would do the Work for us. Of
course, there is a drawback: machines in turn create
Work for us. This is why, instead of living in a
Work-free environment, we have Chores such as system
administration and system upgrades.
We
here at CCSS believe that we need to fight the machines'
attempt to hand an ever-growing amount of Work over to
humans. We have therefore come up with our own little
machines that fight back for you. Machines that take the
Work the other machines want you to do and do it for
you. These are virtual machines ("software") that we
call QSystem Monitor, QMessage Monitor and QRemote
Control, respectively.
QSystem
Monitor is on particularly good terms with the basic
unit of Work that, on the System i, is called a Job.
QSystem Monitor can help you find answers to questions
such as "What status is this Job in? What function is it
performing? Is a Job waiting for a message? How much CPU
is this bunch of Jobs using?" That's while a Job is in
full swing. For Jobs that are waiting to kick into
action, QSystem Monitor can tell you "What's the longest
time any Job has been waiting in this Job queue?" or "Is
this Job queue connected to any subsystem at all?" And
there's plenty more.
But
since QSystem Monitor and Jobs are such good buddies,
and their relationship is so useful to you, we decided
we would... add... *yet another* Job-related check! Yes,
that's true. Another one. Can't leave a good thing
alone. We must make it better.
The
next release of QSystem Monitor will feature a
brand-spanking-new check called "Job Run Time."
Job Run Time check lets you track just how long it's
been since a Job kicked into action. It's perfect for
checking Jobs that you know are only supposed to run
for, say two hours, and then drop out (or be replaced by
new Jobs). All you need to do is to create the check,
tell QSM the Jobs you want to monitor, and presto.
Of course, you can also create a custom threshold. And
with thresholds come notifications,
so if you have QMessage
Monitor, you can forward
and escalate
the notification, and if you have QRemote
Control, you can escalate via SMTP
and SMS
and reply from your favourite spot at the beach, but I
digress.
What
I want to say is: Check out the new "Job Run Time"
check. You'll like it. Kick back. Relax. Enjoy watching
your System i do Work for us, the humans.
