Best practices for configuring OMEGAMON products and components

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Follow these guidelines to facilitate your experience when configuring OMEGAMON products and components.

When configuring your OMEGAMON products and components, you can use either of the two available configuration tools: IBM Z Monitoring Configuration Manager (Monitoring Configuration Manager or Configuration Manager) or Parameter Generator (PARMGEN).

PARMGEN or Configuration Manager?

IBM Z® Monitoring Configuration Manager evolved from PARMGEN.

You can use either Configuration Manager or PARMGEN to configure runtime environments for the supported OMEGAMON products and components, and both tools use mainly the same parameters.

Although you can achieve the same results using either tool, Configuration Manager provides a significantly improved and simplified process of configuring your runtime environments when compared with PARMGEN.

If you are a new user, use Configuration Manager.

If you are a PARMGEN user, consider moving to Configuration Manager, by methodically migrating your runtime environments from PARMGEN to Configuration Manager.

For more information about moving from PARMGEN to Configuration Manager, see the following topics:

Best practices for configuration

Regardless of which configuration tool you are using, Configuration Manager or PARMGEN, there are some basic guidelines that will help you to maintain a clean and problem-free configuration for your runtime environment.

The following best practices apply when using either Configuration Manager or PARMGEN:
  • Before any configuration update, review the latest enhancements to the configuration tools. See What's new in Tivoli Management Services on z/OS configuration software.
  • Update the configurable parameters for your runtime environment by using the configuration tool only; do not attempt to modify any of the underlying configurable members directly. Such updates can cause problems when applying maintenance or upgrading products within a runtime environment.
    Important: If you make manual modifications to your runtime libraries (RK*), you will lose your configuration changes when you run the Configuration Manager GENERATE action or the PARMGEN $PARSE jobs.
    Note: If you are using PARMGEN to maintain your runtime environments, there are steps you can take to make sure that no manual modifications exist in your configuration. For more information, see Rectifying your PARMGEN configuration.
  • Configure your runtime environment parameters only in the supported data sets. For Configuration Manager, use members in the RTEDEF data set; for PARMGEN, use the WCONFIG data set.
  • Use override embed members when you cannot apply a setting using a standard parameter. Use of embed members for override parameters prevents parameter settings from being overwritten during maintenance or upgrades. For more information, see the following topics: Override embed members, Customizing the override embed members, Using override embed members in Configuration Manager.