Previous articles in this series provide an overview of the many new features in WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1. In this article, learn about the important role that data plays in an overall WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 solution. Business activity monitoring is all about data—collecting, processing, visualizing, and analyzing data. This article explains how WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 makes your data more maintainable, flexible, and accessible.
WebSphere Business Monitor now supports several different database vendors:
- Derby Embedded 10.1
- IBM DB2® 8.2
- IBM DB2 9.1
- IBM DB2 for z/OS® V8
- Oracle 10g
For more details, including specific database version levels, take a look at the detailed hardware and software requirements.
WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 requires a single physical database that is used by both the WebSphere Business Monitor server runtime and the dashboards to ensure that real-time data can be displayed in the monitor dashboard. The replication manager from WebSphere Business Monitor 6.0.2 is no longer required to move data between monitor databases.
You now have the option of enabling a simpler data movement service to optimize performance. The data movement service is based on IBM WebSphere Application Server and is disabled by default. Larger production environments might want to enable the data movement service to improve system performance while keeping the data available in near real time.
Flexible database installation
WebSphere Business Monitor database installation has been dramatically enhanced to provide several new options for the database administrator across DB2 and Oracle. The MONITOR database name and the schema name are now configurable at installation time.
When creating the WebSphere Business Monitor database, the installer can automatically create the database if the database server is local to the WebSphere Business Monitor server. Or, the installer can create a Data Definition Language (DDL) script that the database administrator can execute to create the database. An embedded Derby database is automatically configured for the WebSphere Business Monitor toolkit test environment.
DB2 Cube Views™ and DB2 AlphaBlox® are now optional. You can use WebSphere Business Monitor cubes to perform dimension analysis on collected data. Data can be sliced and diced by various dimensions to gain insight into the monitored processes. The dimensional analysis is powered by DB2 AlphaBlox, which is bundled with WebSphere Business Monitor. Dimensional analysis is an optional feature. If selected, the WebSphere Business Monitor installer will install DB2 AlphaBlox. DB2 AlphaBlox can also be installed later.
The DB2 Cube Views feature was merged into the DB2 data warehouse and is no longer a requirement for WebSphere Business Monitor. However, you can still export WebSphere Business Monitor cubes to the DB2 data warehouse. You may want to export the cubes to the DB2 data warehouse to optimize reporting performance against cubes (using suggested materialized query tables), and to enable business partners that have implemented the DB2 Cube Views bridge interface for the purpose of reporting against DB2 cube data.
Using dimensional analysis is not an all-or-nothing situation. Starting with WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1.1, the entire dimension model can be deleted from a monitor model, or various cubes relating to monitoring contexts can be deleted from the monitor model's dimensional model. There is no longer a required 1:1 relationship between monitoring contexts and cubes.
The dimensional model itself has several enhancements. The datamart model is now called the dimensional model, because it more accurately represents what the data is used for. Facts have been removed because they were redundant. Measures now directly reference the metrics they are based on.
Automated deployment of monitor model artifacts
WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 supports automated deployment of monitor model artifacts. Upon model deployment, a user can now choose to automate:
- Model schema creation
- DB2 AlphaBlox cubes creation and deployment
- Data movement service enablement
By default, upon model deployment the schema and the AlphaBlox cubes are created. Thus, the user can start customizing dashboards and initiate event processing immediately upon model deployment.
Figure 1. WebSphere Business Monitor model installation options - Manage schema
Data movement service is not enabled by default at model installation time. It can be enabled later. Users can also specify whether the ultimate model uninstallation should remove the associated schema or leave the schema in place for continued dashboard reporting after the model is uninstalled.
Figure 2. WebSphere Business Monitor model installation options - Manage AlphaBlox cubes
After model deployment, the user has the option to create and delete the model schema. The user can have the WebSphere Business Monitor server execute the scripts automatically or can opt to export the create and delete model schema scripts and have a database administrator execute them manually.
Figure 3. Manage schema post-installation
WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 cubes can be created in DB2 AlphaBlox and deleted from DB2 AlphaBlox after model deployment. The DB2 AlphaBlox and Cube Views cubes (in XML format) can be exported as well.
Figure 4. Manage AlphaBlox Cubes
The optional data movement service in WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 replaces the replication manager that was utilized in WebSphere Business Monitor 6.0.2. You still use the data movement service to optimize the server runtime and dashboard reporting. By separating the data that's used by server runtime and dashboard reporting, the new release minimizes database contention and maximizes performance.
The data movement service is supported on all database environments except Derby, because Derby is not a production database. Previously, DB2 replication technology copied and pruned data between runtime and dashboard data stores. With WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1, the data movement service is a WebSphere Application Server user application, which automates the copying and pruning of data between active and historical tables in the single WebSphere Business Monitor database. It uses stored procedures for this data movement so it can run optimally within the database server.
You can configure the data movement interval from the WebSphere Business Monitor integrated solutions console during or after model installation. It can be configured to move data at a specified time. All invocations of the stored procedures and results are logged.
Like the model schema and cubes, the data movement service can be enabled in either an automated fashion, or with scripts that enable data movement service to be exported and provided to a database administrator for execution.
Figure 5. Enable data movement service
Access data with REST services APIs
With WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1, model metadata and monitored business data are available using a set of Representational State Transfer (REST)ful service application programming interfaces (APIs). They provide an external interface for WebSphere Business Monitor dashboards, custom dashboards, and any other consumer that would like programmatic access to the WebSphere Business Monitor data. REST describes an architectural style of networked systems. REST is stateless, uses standard HTTP methods (enabling better scalability than other types of APIs), and is a simplified architecture.
All REST APIs can be accessed by a set of HTTP-style requests and use JavaScript™ Object Notation (JSON) for data exchange.
With WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1, users can create and define their own dashboards by invoking REST APIs. Customers can customize the functions they want to expose to various user groups. The WebSphere Business Monitor information center (see Resources) has more information.
WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 includes enhanced support for change management with flexible model changes and versioning.
Previously, there were several restrictions on what kinds of changes were supported across different versions of the same model. Users now have much greater flexibility in modeling business processes. Most changes are supported across model versions. The only changes not supported between model versions are changes to a metric data type and changes to the location of a monitor context within the monitor model hierarchy.
Two new features that support change management are cross-version and version-specific dashboards. WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 dashboards can display data relative to a single model version or across all model versions. With version-specific dashboards, you can choose the version for which you want to view data. Only instances processed with that version of the monitor model and metrics and dimensions defined in that version will be displayed.
Cross-version dashboards provide a view into the monitored data across all versions of a model. The cross-version view is available in the instance, dimensional, and report dashboard views. For example, you may want to look at all the dimensions that exist under a cube for all versions of the deployed model. The cross-version view will provide the superset of all measures and dimensions that existed in any version of the model. Cross-version data for all the metrics created in any version of a monitor model is viewable under the instance view.
Previously, stopwatches were updated only when an event was processed. With WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1, the dashboards display the real-time value of stopwatches. As the instance view is refreshed, the stopwatch value will also be refreshed.
In this article, you learned about the improved data-related features in IBM WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1. Your data will be more maintainable, flexible, and accessible to enhance your business activity monitoring.
Stay tuned for future articles that will explore how you can further use these new features to support your business.
Learn
- Check out the other parts of this series:
- Part 1, "What's new in WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1" (developerWorks, Dec 2007)
- Part 2, "WebSphere Business Monitor 6.1 installation improvements" (developerWorks, Jan 2008)
- Part 3, "Improved Unit Test Environment in IBM WebSphere Business Monitor Development Toolkit V6.1" (developerWorks, Feb 2008)
- Part 4, "Improving iterative development with the integrated test client in IBM WebSphere Business Monitor V6.1" (developerWorks, Mar 2008)
- Part 5, "Managing failed and unrecoverable events In IBM WebSphere Business Monitor V6.1" (developerWorks, Apr 2008)
- Part 6, "Integrating high-level and low-level monitor models" (developerWorks, Apr 2008)
- Part 7, "Creating user-defined XPath functions for IBM WebSphere Business Monitor V6.1" (developerWorks, Apr 08)
- Part 8, "Enabling IBM WebSphere Business Monitor V6.1 to receive events from WebSphere MQ" (developerWorks, Apr 08)
- Part 9, "Empowered authoring of monitor models with IBM WebSphere Business Monitor development toolkit for 6.1" (developerWorks, May 08)
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Table of contents
- Introduction
- Multiple database vendors
- One physical database
- Flexible database installation
- Dimensional analysis
- Automated deployment of monitor model artifacts
- Data movement service
- Access data with REST services APIs
- Enhanced change management
- Accurate running stopwatches
- Summary
- Resources
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