Switching system availability monitoring (SAM) on for a MAS

System availability monitoring issues warnings when problems occur in monitored CICS® systems.

CICSPlex® SM's system availability monitoring is easy to set up and is extremely useful. When system availability monitoring is active for a particular CICS system, CICSPlex SM warns you if the system becomes unavailable, or if any of the following conditions occur:
Condition SAM event  
SOS !!SAMSOS Short on storage
SYSDUMP !!SAMSDM System dump
TRANDUMP !!SAMTDM Transaction dump
MAXTASK !!SAMMAX Maximum number of tasks
NON Responsive MAS !!SAMNRM Nonresponsive MAS detected by CMAS
STALL !!SAMSTL System busy

You activate monitoring of system availability (!!SAMOPS) by telling CICSPlex SM the hours of the day that you expect the CICS system to be available. To do this, specify the name of a valid time-period definition in the Period definition name field of the CICS system definitions detail view.

You activate monitoring of the conditions by switching on real-time analysis for the CICS system.

The following example tells CICSPlex SM that CICS system CICSPA01, in CICSplex PLXPROD1, should run problem-free between 09:00 and 17:30 and, if it doesn't, to issue a warning. The example switches system availability monitoring on permanently for CICSPA01, and takes effect immediately. The time-period definition PDFSHFTA, which specifies the hours from 09:00 to 17:30, has already been created.
  1. Update the CICS system definition.
    1. From the main menu, click Administration > RTA system availability monitoring > CICS system definitions to open the CICS system definitions tabular view.
    2. If the current context is not PLXPROD1, specify PLXPROD1 in the Context field and click Refresh.
    3. Select the entry for CICSPA01 and click Update. A CICS system definitions detail view is displayed.
    4. In the Primary CMAS name field, type in the name of the CMAS to which CICS normally connects. For this example, type CMSSYS1.
    5. In the Period definition name field, type PDFSHFTA.
    6. Scroll down to the Real time analysis status field and select YES from the drop-down menu.

      If you want to monitor only system availability (and not the SOS, SYSDUMP, TRANDUMP, MAXTASK, LOSTMAS, and STALL conditions), specify SAM rather than YES for this field.

    7. Click Yes.

      The CICS system definitions tabular view is displayed again. The change takes effect immediately.

  2. Look at the CICSPlex SM event notifications.

    Now that system availability monitoring is switched on for CICS system CICSPA01, you can check the system's availability by clicking Real Time Analysis (RTA) Outstanding Events in the General views section of the WUI main menu. If CICSPA01 is not active, or is not problem-free, during the period defined in time-period definition PDFSHFTA, there will be a corresponding entry displayed in the view.

If you decide later to switch system availability monitoring off for CICS system CICSPA01, update the CICS system definition again (as described in step 1), and specify NO in the Real time analysis status field.