Improving Operator Interfaces

Automated operations reduce the amount of human involvement needed to run a data-processing environment. Nevertheless, operators still need to be able to monitor the environment, examine the status of resources, and verify that automation is functioning correctly.

Furthermore, you need a mechanism for exception notification. Exception notification is the process of informing operators when automation routines encounter an event you have not yet automated or when the routines fail to resolve a problem.

Therefore, plan interfaces that give operators the information they need. You can present information to operators in the following forms:
  • Messages from the command facility
  • Alerts from the hardware monitor
  • Status information from the status monitor and the NetView® management console (NMC)
  • Full-screen displays and help panels displayed with the VIEW command processor