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SightLine Systems has been providing
performance and capacity management solutions to large enterprises for almost 30
years, and has been delivering VAX and OpenVMS solutions for 20 years.
SightLine’s applications are built to support complex, mission
critical systems. With SightLine, system administrators can collect current and
historical information through a centralized console, providing real time status
of your entire OpenVMS environment. SightLine’s OpenVMS solution provides
several key benefits, including the abilities to:
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Detect, diagnose, prevent and predict data
loss and downtime through a wide range of analytics and automation.
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Monitor multiple OpenVMS systems (as well
as other mission critical platforms) concurrently.
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Improve overall performance through
proactive system tuning and troubleshooting and the ability to track and
monitor a full array of OpenVMS specific parameters.
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Provide full support for the performance,
reliability and availability offered by OpenVMS and its related resources
via monitoring and managing OpenVMS clusters.
Commodity solutions will not allow
users to have the visibility needed to manage OpenVMS systems effectively.
Because they have been purpose built for OpenVMS, SightLine’s solutions allow
for the most efficient monitoring of those platforms in real time, and provides
the granular, in-depth information needed to manage these systems effectively,
including the following:
CPU Statistics
Modes Metrics - The
Modes metrics describe CPU utilization both in total and by component parts.
Each metric is expressed on a scale that has zero as its minimum and one hundred
times the number of active processors (Active CPU Cnt) as its maximum.
States Metrics - The
States metrics describe the scheduling State Queues. OpenVMS assigns processes
to those queues so that their scheduler can prioritize their use of system
resources. SightLine delivers the number of processes in each of these states,
as well as total processes on the system. SightLine also provides the count of
processes on the COM queue to indicate how many are Batch, Interactive and
Network processes.
Memory Statistics
MPW Metrics - The
Modified Page Writer (MPW) metrics describe the nature of activity, and
performance of the Modified Page Writer Mechanism, which is the portion of the
OpenVMS Swapper that maintains the Modified List.
Page Metrics - The
Page metrics describe the behavior and performance of the OpenVMS memory
management software. The metrics Modified List Size, Free List and Zeroed List
Size measure the three respective components of the Secondary Page Cache. The
remainder of the Page metrics reported by SightLine measure the rate at which
various memory management activities occur.
Pool Metrics - The
Pool metrics describe memory that OpenVMS allocates for its own use and the use
of its requesting processes in the pool (including both Paged and Non-Page
Pool). Pool metrics include request, expansion, and failure rates for both types
of pool.
I/O Statistic
Disk Metrics - Disk
metrics describe the level of activity and performance of your disks. All disk
metrics except Disk Count are subscripted, which means that for each metric SightLine provides a value for each device on the system. This allows you to
display and analyze the performance of each individual disk relative to
Operation Count, Queue Length, Disk Errors, Response Time, Disk Space, and Read
and Write Rates.
Disk Controller Metrics
- SightLine can report on many disk, HotFile and XFC metrics on a per-controller
basis, for use by those who want to balance loads between multiple Fibre Channel
paths.
FCP Metrics - The File
Control Primitive (FCP) metrics describe the performance of the OpenVMS file
system. They can be monitored to determine the nature, efficiency, and system
impact of file operations.
XQP Metrics – The XQP
metrics include call rates, XQP disk read and XQP write rates, Cache hits, CPU
time, Window hits, split transfers, XQP page faults, allocations, file
creations, volume lock waits, erases, and window turns.
I/O Metrics
- The I/O metrics describe system-wide input/output activity. Once you become
familiar with their behaviors during periods of normal activity, you can detect
abnormalities by setting thresholds on those that affect (or reflect) your
system’s performance. Using these abnormalities as an investigative starting
point, you can quickly pinpoint performance problems within your I/O subsystem.
I/O metrics include Direct and Buffered I/O Rate, Log Xlate Rate, File Open
Rate, Process Inswaps Rate, and Open File Count.
MSCP Metrics - The MSCP metrics describe the nature of activity, level of activity, and performance
of the Mass Storage Control Protocol, which provides cluster-wide access to
local devices.
Files Metrics - The
Files metrics describe the levels of activity and the performance of the
system-wide file system, including the file system caches and other indicators.
File system cache metrics include Tries, Hits, Hit Rate, Misses and Index for FIDs, Extent Cache, File Headers, Directory FCBs, Quota, Bitmap, and Directory
Data.
Virtual I/O Cache Metrics – The Virtual I/O Cache metrics describe the nature of activity, level of
activity, and performance of the Virtual I/O Cache, which was introduced to
OpenVMS beginning with v6.0 on VAX and v1.0 on AXP systems. The Virtual I/O
Cache is a single, file-oriented cache designed to improve I/O performance on
stand-alone and clustered systems. For the Virtual I/O Cache, SightLine can
report total pages, bytes, free pages, free bytes, pages in use, bytes in use,
read attempts, read hits, read hit percentages, write attempts, write hits,
write hit percentages, read bypasses, write bypasses and files retained.
eXtended File Cache (XFC) Metrics
– SightLine collects XFC metrics from OpenVMS v7.3 and later. SightLine gathers
all XFC performance data, including XFC Cache, Disk, and I/O Size information.
Network Statistics
DECnet Metrics - The
DECnet metrics describe the level of DECnet activity on your local system.
DECnet metrics include Arriving Local and Transit Packet Rates, Departing Local
Packet Rate, Transit Congestion Loss Rate, and Receive Buffer Failure Rate.
Ethernet Metrics - SightLine provides information about Ethernet Performance
and Levels of on the system, including Blocks Sent and Received, Data Overruns, Fails, Errors,
and Buffer Availability.
SCS Metrics - The SCS
metrics describe the level and activity of performance of the System
Communication Services. The SCS metrics are subscripted, which means that for
each metric, SightLine measures the activity for each virtual circuit. SCS
metrics include Datagram Send and Receive Rates, Message Send and Receive Rates,
Connection Queue Rates, and additional metrics related to Block Data Transfers.
SYSGEN Statistics
Dynamic SYSGEN Metrics - The Dynamic SYSGEN category contains System
Generation parameters that you can change while the system is running. In other
words, you can implement changes to Dynamic SYSGEN parameters without rebooting
your system. In some cases, changes to these parameters take effect almost
immediately. Other times, changes take effect only after certain non-routine
external events occur. Wherever possible, the SightLine data dictionary displays
the effective time of any changes you make.
Static SYSGEN Metrics
- The Static SYSGEN category contains those System Generation parameters that
can be implemented only by changing their values using the OpenVMS SYSGEN (or
SYSMAN), or AUTOGEN utility and rebooting the system.
HotFiles Statistics
The HotFiles statistics show the files that have
the most activity. The activity may be based on the number of reads/writes or
the amount of data read/written. A user-defined minimum “score” can be used to
determine the level of activity a file must have for a given interval before it
is considered a “HotFile”. The user may also choose (by filename) which files to
include or exclude from HotFiles report, for example, one could choose to ignore
all .EXE files from the statistics.
Workload Statistics
SightLine can be configured so that process
data (CPU usage, page faults, Direct I/O, Buffered I/O, average memory usage,
image activations and total process count) can be reported based on Groupings
you define, dividing the processes into separate workloads according to UIC,
Account Username, Processname Image, Mode or combinations thereof. This makes it
much easier to identify rogue users or applications, and is used by some
customers for chargeback purposes.
Lock Manager Statistics
SightLine can report rates for new and
conversion enqueues, enqueue waits, enqueues not queued, dequeues, blocking
ASTs, deadlock searches, deadlock finds, total locks and total resources.
Distributed Lock Manager Statistics
SightLine collects metrics that describe the
activity required for the Distributed Lock Manager to synchronize operations
across a clustered system. Reported metrics include rates for incoming and
outgoing messages in support of each of the Lock Manager’s functions in the
cluster.
Virtual Balance Set Statistics
Rates can be reported for bytes read, bytes
written, real and virtual transitions, map buffer allocations, real slot
availability, virtual selection failure rates, virtual map hit rates, map count,
fluid balance, recopy rate, and Virtual Balance Set CPU time.
DEC Distributed Transaction Manager Statistics
DDTM is the protocol used for two-phase commits
by RMS, Oracle Rdb and Oracle DBMS. As of OpenVMS v7.3.1, HP has also documented
it for public use. SightLine can report on DDTM rates for start, prepare, abort,
end, 1-phase commits, remote branch and remote add branch as well as a range of
transaction lengths.
Uptime Statistics
SightLine will report on total uptime since the
last boot or uptime for the current month either on a 24-hour basis for the full
week or divided according to a schedule of selected time periods.
Galaxy Events
For systems that are instances in an OpenVMS
Galaxy, SightLine can provide notification of various Galaxy-related events,
such as other instances joining and leaving the Galaxy, CPUs becoming active or
inactive in the instance, CPUs joining or leaving the configure set for the
instance, updates to the Galaxy configuration tree, modifications to CPU I/O
preferences, and time differential changes.
Galaxy Statistics
For ongoing data pertaining to a system which is
an instance in an OpenVMS Galaxy, SightLine can report shared memory statistics
(total, used, free, bad and CPP count), CPUs active, made active, made inactive,
added to the configure set, leaving the instance, instances joined, Instances
left, Tree updates, potential CPUs, number of times the Galaxy has been
incarnated, as well as, identification information regarding the particular
Galaxy member.
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