Step 4 - Application Monitoring
Automating resources does not only consist of starting and stopping the resources. It is also important to know methods that determine whether the component is working as expected or already terminated. System Automation provides proper monitoring routines to be able to determine its state.
What kind of an application is it and could the state of the application be determined by:
- The existence of an address space
- The existence of a USS process
- The status of a NetView task
The corresponding monitor could be specified in the field MONITOR ROUTINE.
Step 4 presents messages issued by applications and how communicative they are. So it is useful to decide whether an application must be actively monitored or its state could be reliably derived from messages. If this is the case the MONITOR INTERVAL could be set to NONE. It helps to reduce the messages in the NetView log and to reduce unnecessary system activity. The monitoring action itself takes place at the startup and shutdown cycle to verify the state of the application.
In contrast, there are less communicative applications. In this case a well balanced monitor interval (specific enough) ensures a periodic monitoring service to verify the applications status.
Sometimes it is not enough to know whether a resource is running or not. Many situations require more detailed information as well as its status. The concept of monitor resources provides the infrastructure to evaluate the status of resources in detail and to react properly to the specific situation.