Monitoring system resources with OTMA

OTMA monitors IMS system resources that are used to process OTMA transactions and notifies OTMA clients about how well the IMS system is processing OTMA transactions.

If an OTMA client receives a notification that the IMS system is not processing OTMA message normally, the OTMA client can then take appropriate action, such as rerouting OTMA transaction messages to a different IMS system.

OTMA sends notifications to OTMA clients as a server state protocol command. OTMA issues the server state protocol command in the following circumstances:

When an OTMA client establishes a tpipe connection
When a significant change occurs in the ability of IMS to process OTMA messages
As a heartbeat message at 60 second intervals

The server state protocol message categorizes the overall state of the IMS system by using the following states.

Normal state (X'03'): IMS is available and is processing OTMA messages normally.
Degraded state (X'02): IMS is processing OTMA messages slowly. OTMA issues a degraded state protocol command when one or more conditions indicate that IMS is not processing OTMA messages as quickly as it should.
Unavailable state (X'01): IMS can no longer accept OTMA transactions for processing. OTMA issues the unavailable state protocol command to alert the OTMA client that one or more severe conditions prevent IMS from processing OTMA messages.

In addition to notifying the client of the overall state of IMS processing, if the IMS processing is in either a degraded or unavailable state, the server state protocol command can include additional information about the condition of specific resources associated with the degraded or unavailable state.

The server state protocol command is identified by a value of X'3C' in the protocol command type field (TMAMCTYP) in the message control information section of the OTMA message header. The server state protocol command itself is delivered in the state data section of the OTMA header and mapped with the TMAMRSIM field prefix in the DFSYMSG macro.

You can view information about OTMA clients, OTMA tpipe connections, and the OTMA messages that are currently being processed by IMS by issuing the type-2 IMS Command QUERY OTMATI.