Initialization Best Practices › Enable the IBM Health Check Environment

Enable the IBM Health Check Environment

CA Datacom delivers IBM standard health checks for the CA Datacom environment. Each health check provides a description of the health check, any negative findings, and text that describes the mitigation plan to correct the problem.

Business Value

The CA Datacom health checks alert you to situations that can have a negative effect on the CA Datacom environment. In some cases, these effects can go unnoticed. The purpose of the health check is to alert you before damage is done and possibly avoid a CA Datacom outage.

For example, CA Datacom/DB Version 14.0 includes a health check that monitors the high-water mark of concurrent tasks in use. If the concurrent tasks in use get within a selected percentage of available tasks, you are notified. A MUF outage is required to change the number of available tasks. Health check gives you an early warning and allows you to expand the task number at the next regularly scheduled MUF cycle.

For more information, see the CA Datacom/DB Database and System Administration Guide.

Mainframe 2.0 Serviceability

CA Datacom always attempts to connect to OPS/MVS when running in z/OS. It sets the STATE of a specific instance to one of four states.

• STARTING indicates the MUF has determined it to be starting and is the only one doing so with the specific MUF name.
• UP is the point where it starts accepting requests.
• STOPPING indicates that an EOJ is committed.
• DOWN occurs just before it releases its hold on the MUF name.

Note: If you are using CA Datacom/DB, the short product name for CA Datacom MUF is CADTCMDB. If you are using CA Datacom/AD, it is CADTCMAD. If you are using CA Datacom MSM, it is CADCMMSM.

Business Value

Standardizing CA product active and heartbeat events enhances Mainframe 2.0 serviceability. Approximately every 2 minutes, MUF issues an OPS/MVS heartbeat notification. A status of NORMAL and reason of blank is provided for all conditions other than the following special cases:

• A status of PROBLEM and a reason of TERMINATION IN PROCESS if the MUF has recognized that it is failing and in the process of being terminated.
• A status of NORMAL and a reason of EOJ REQUESTED, NOT COMMITTED if an EOJ has been requested but is not yet committed to occur. This is the time that an EOJOFF is allowed.
• A status of NORMAL and a reason of EOJ COMMITTED if an EOJ has been requested and is now committed to occur. An EOJOFF is no longer valid.

Considerations

To fit common standards, it has no state change relating to EOJ requested but not committed. This is rare and subject to removing the EOJ. If an error is generated with the OPS/MVS communication, the following message is issued and then the error is ignored by MUF:

DB00284W - CA OPS/MVS API error return code nn, reason code nn

An OPS/MVS heartbeat message can occur such as:

OPSLOGSV CAHEARTBT DBDVM

applid:CADTCMDB

version: 14.0

level:DBDVM01

status: Normal

reason:

In this message, DBDVM0 is the MUF job name, CADTCMDB is the short product name, 14.0 is the version, DBDVM01 is the MUF name, and NORMAL is the status.

For more information about messages, see the CA Datacom/DB Message Reference Guide.