Availability Manager V3.0-2

[Barry Kierstein]

The Availability Manager team is pleased to announce Availability Manager V3.0-2. This version implements by far the most popular request – collection of data over an IP network. This is done by introducing the Data Server, which tunnels the AMDS protocol through a secure IP socket to the Data Analyzer. This method allows for the most backward compatibility with older versions of the Availability Manager and DECamds.

There are some other enhancements as well:
• Ability to install the Data Analyzer/Server kit off the system disk. This ability was added since Java 5.0 on OpenVMS requires installation on an ODS-5 disk.
• Ability to force a disk volume out of a Mount Verify state.
• Ability to force a shadow set member of a crashed node out of the shadow set.
• Collect data from Logical Disks.
• Event log now shows when an event was cancelled so that the time interval of when the event was valid can be determined.
• COM Qs column in the System Overview window has been revised. The more common process states (COM and PFW) are now in a separate column, and the remaining states (MWAIT, COLPG, FPW and COMO) reside in the COM Qs column. If the value in the CPU Qs column is non-zero, then the display shows the total number of processes in each state. The events for the six states formerly in the CPU Qs column have been revised as well.
• A number of tooltips in the System Overview have been added or modified, including the tooltip for the MEM column that shows alignment faults on the system. A new event signals a high alignment fault rate.

The Availability Manager team recommends reading the Release Notes and the OpenVMS sections of the Installation Guide for changes in the OpenVMS kit names and contents, and Chapters 1 and 2 of the User’s Guide to see how the Data Server works with the Data Analyzer and how to configure the two to transport AMDS packets over an IP network.
The Availability Manager team also wants to thank the people participating in the field test. Their dedicated help has made this version more feature complete and stable.

[Ian Miller.]

Since V3 first appeared on Itanium last year and due to extensive field testing I am expecting this version to even more wonderful.

AM is a very useful tool and well worth getting. It is free on OpenVMS Alpha. Licensing for Availability Manager on I64 systems is explained at
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/availman/order.html

In case you are wondering, AM is a real time monitoring tool for OpenVMS systems and can be used to fix things too :-) Read the manual and get in installed on your systems before you need it.