Forwarding a live feed of IMS Connect events

The IMS Connect Extensions feed collects events from running IMS Connect Extensions systems, consolidates the events into one record per IMS Connect transaction, and then forwards those records to one of three destinations.

The destination can be: a remote analytics platform that is listening on a TCP/IP port for data in JSON Lines format, a data set, or System Management Facilities (SMF).

You can use the feed to analyze the performance of IMS Connect transactions.

Figure 1. IMS Connect Extensions feed
Figure that shows the IMS Connect Extensions feed collecting, consolidating, and forwarding IMS Connect events. For example, you can forward data in JSON Lines format over TCP/IP to analytics platforms such as Splunk.

The feed job continues to run whether or not the source IMS Connect systems are available. If an IMS Connect system is unavailable when the feed job starts or becomes unavailable later, the job polls the system at regular intervals indefinitely. If the IMS Connect system becomes available, the feed job starts (or restarts) monitoring the system for events.

Feed output: IMS Connect transaction index

The consolidated records output by the feed are known as IMS Connect transaction index records. A data set of such records, which is one of the feed destinations, is known as an IMS Connect transaction index.

You can also use other tools to create and process IMS Connect transaction indexes. For example:

  • You can use IBM® IMS Performance Analyzer for z/OS® to create IMS Connect transaction indexes from IMS Connect Extensions archive journals.
  • You can use IMS Performance Analyzer to create reports from IMS Connect transaction indexes.
  • You can use the following tools to browse IMS Connect transaction indexes:
    • IBM Transaction Analysis Workbench for z/OS
    • IBM IMS Problem Investigator for z/OS

    These tools classify IMS Connect transaction index records as log type IMS, log code CA20.

Note: For simplicity, where the distinction between the feed job and its output is either obvious or not important, this documentation uses the term feed.