1. OVERVIEW › 1.2 Major Features
1.2 Major Features
The major features of CA MICS Network Analyzer can be grouped
into four categories:
o Report facilities
o Use of IBM TCP/IP for z/OS and SNA network data
o General product flexibility
o Interface capabilities
Report Facilities
-----------------
The CA MICS Network Analyzer provides the following reports:
o Exception Reports allow you to define, capture, and report
on network conditions that deviate from the expected norm.
o Standard Analysis Reports include:
- Service Reports that quantify response data and allow
you to analyze the service being provided to end users.
- Workload Reports that display workload and utilization
levels for network nodes, including physical and
logical network resources.
- Data Collection Reports that provide an overview of the
response time, service, and network load associated
with end users.
- Network Incident Reports that provide network error
information by resource and incident type.
o Graphics Analysis Reports help you to effectively
communicate how well your network is serving the end user.
Available through the CA MICS Information Center Facility
(MICF), these inquiries include:
- Service Level Graphic Inquiries that display response
information from NPM, CA NetSpy, NetView, and CA
NetMaster data sources.
- Resource Utilization and Consumption Inquiries that
display information about network component
utilization.
- Reliability Inquiries that show error counts or rates
for those system resources that are the most critical
and that fail most often.
Use of IBM TCP/IP for z/OS and SNA Network Data
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An important feature of the CA MICS Network Analyzer is its
comprehensive handling of SNA data.
o It provides a common database to support a variety of
information across many SNA network monitor data sources
as well as data source from IBM TCP/IP for z/OS.
o It integrates network monitor data with application
monitor data.
o It combines monitor-generated exceptions from the NPM
Network Subsystem with user-defined exceptions from the
NPM Session Subsystem, NetView Session Monitor, NetView
Hardware Monitor, CA NetSpy, and CA NetMaster.
o It excludes erroneous and redundant monitor data from the
CA MICS database, increasing both data reliability and
usability.
o It eliminates duplicate data for cross-domain sessions
when NetView is running on multiple hosts.
General Product Flexibility
---------------------------
The CA MICS Network Analyzer offers a number of flexibility
features:
o Information in a form suitable for basic network
accounting, and the necessary structure to support
chargeback through CA MICS Accounting and Chargeback.
o Usage guidelines for analyzing and reporting network
management information.
o A Data Dictionary that describes the information found in
the CA MICS Network Analyzer database.
o Time zone translation to simplify combining data from
geographically dispersed network nodes into the same CA
MICS files.
o A wide range of standard exits that allow you to examine,
alter, extract, or delete data as required.
Interface Capabilities
----------------------
The CA MICS Network Analyzer integrates the data collected by
IBM TCP/IP for z/OS, NPM (NetView Performance Monitor),
NetView Session Monitor/NLDM, CA NetSpy, and CA NetMaster
into the CA MICS database. This process creates the CA MICS
Network, the NetView Session, and TCP/IP Information Areas,
all of which interface with the following CA MICS products:
o CA MICS Accounting and Chargeback - The CA MICS Network
Analyzer provides network data to CA MICS Accounting and
Chargeback that supports accounting for consumed resources
through a variety of resource utilization measures (for
example, characters transmitted, session connect time, and
so forth).
o CA MICS Capacity Planner - The CA MICS Network Analyzer
maintains a database of detailed and summarized network
data that the CA MICS Capacity Planner can use to make
growth/trend projections at the system, organizational,
application, and end-user levels.
