TUG Buzz! for Friday March 11th, 2022

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Shield Article AAG and EM4i Customer Feedback
2. March 23rd dinner MoM - 5:00 Speaker: Charlie Hird
                                        7:00 Speakers: Jon Paris & Susan Gantner
3. Stay Connected - Confirm your subscription to TUG Buzz

Article by (TUG Gold Sponsor)
Shield Advanced Solutions:

At Shield Advanced Solutions Ltd we love to hear good news from our clients, especially when they tell us how pleased they are with our latest IBM i offerings EM4i – Message Monitoring and AAG – Nagios Monitoring for IBM i.

One of our long-standing clients who have been relying on Shield's HA4i for their High Availability solution enquired about our new offerings after being shocked by the rising maintenance cost for their existing IBM i monitoring solution that is no longer being enhanced by the vendor. They have been a Shield customer for many years, and often mention the satisfaction they have with our support and overall commitment to making sure they are happy with the products.

EM4i Shield's messaging solution was an instant hit, after a demo our team helped the client set up the first system for an extended trial. They were particularly interested in the Pushover Notification process we have added to the product and felt the process was very intuitive easy to set up.

The IBM i is critical to their operations and they have some pretty stiff regulatory requirements for their operational processes, it was important the products met these requirements particularly being able to provide a secure environment. It is crucial for them to receive early warnings of issues to ensure they fix the problems efficiently and effectively, this is why EM4i was a particularly important addition to their product suite.

The Pushover set up ensures critical/noncritical alerts are handled immediately ensuring the production jobs are not held waiting for message responses and the responses are only those allowed by the message description.  

"Annual maintenance gets rolled back into product enhancement….
without exorbitant increases."

"One thing that really stands out to me about Shield is their commitment to improving their products.  I've seen an incredible step forward with HA4i over the time that we have been using it.  I can tell that our annual maintenance gets rolled back into product enhancement and we have realized a significant return on that investment without exorbitant annual maintenance increases.  EM4i's initial release could do almost everything that my current messaging software could do – and the folks at Shield devised a solution to bridge the lone gap.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for EM4i.  As Shield works with more customers and develops new features to meet their needs, we will surely see the product transform just like HA4i did.

When Shield's AAG – Nagios Monitoring for IBM i, was announced we could see this was an obvious next step for us by adding some of the features needed for our system management.

The combination of EM4i and AAG gives us peace of mind knowing that we are not walking into a firefight first thing in the morning.  We know if the required subsystems and background jobs are down when they shouldn't be. We know when a job has a message waiting and is blocking a job queue.  The pushover notifications alert us, and we can respond to messages with just a smartphone and the Pushover app.  We can answer most messages in under a minute from anywhere without needing to log into a computer and start a telnet session.  My work laptop stays in its backpack most nights and doesn't travel with me quite as often as it used to."

"… answer most messages in under a minute from anywhere
without needing to log in…."

AAG monitoring ensures EM4i is running correctly. It checks the back-up jobs are running smoothly and in the correct time window, just as they are supposed to. Using AAG to monitor HA4i ensures it is running error free and removes some of the manual monitoring from our operations team. It also ensures that we are current with any product updates ensuring we are using the best product code available.

This client opted for the Raspberry Pi solution to monitor their local network. The Shield team did the initial install, and the client is thrilled with the huge benefit from making such a simple change. The possibilities are enormous, super detailed if needed, and instantly alerts if something goes awry. Historical data can be used to identify patterns to identify potential issues on the horizon allowing you to get ahead of the game.

Like what you hear? Want to know more? Find out how these solutions can be of benefit in your environment? https://www.shieldadvanced.com/Products.php

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📌 Mark your calendar! TUG's next MoM is:

Wednesday, March 23rd
(dinner meeting)

NOTE: This is an in-person dinner meeting at:
DOUBLETREE BY HILTON TORONTO AIRPORT WEST
5444 DIXIE RD, MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO L4W2L2
with live-streaming on Zoom!

We will be following all health department mandated protocols, which includes social distancing and the continued use of properly fitting masks... (Neck gaiters and bandanas are not permitted.)

ALL PATRONS AND STAFF ARE REQUIRED TO BE FULLY VACCINATED TO ATTEND THE MoM. If you are unable or unwilling to comply with these measures, we invite you to watch the meeting on Zoom.

* Note: An MP4 recording of this meeting will be available to download for TUG members in good standing, by email request to admin@tug.ca.

ABSTRACTS: 

5:00 PM Session: Monitoring IBM i with Open Source

Tune in or join us to hear Charlie Hird describe how he explored several different Open Source options for monitoring the IBM i.

Touching on Nagios Core, NEMS Linux, Nagios TV, and Cockpit which are all free, Open Source solutions, available to the public.

He'll outline the steps he went through, starting from the IBM provided solutions, to third party solutions and eventually building an up-to-date plugin for Nagios. A demo of the final solution will be given to demonstrate what is possible.

7:00 PM Session: TBA

Jon & Susan will wow us with another of their fabulous presentations. Stay tuned for details.

SPEAKERS: 

		Charlie Hird (Shield Advanced Solutions) Charlie is a newcomer to the IBM i community, trying to bring a fresh approach to the Shield team. He is instrumental in developing many aspects of IBM i solutions such as Shield's IBM i monitoring suite: AAG, Message monitoring tool – EM4i, and enhancing Shield's High Availability solutions. Charlie is also a proud member of Canadian Armed Forces serving as an infantryman in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada.
		Susan Gantner (Partner/400) Susan worked in Rochester, Minnesota for 5 years in the AS/400 Technical Support Center. She later moved to the IBM Toronto Software Laboratory to provide technical support for programming languages and AD tools on the AS/400. Susan is a regular speaker at COMMON conferences and other technical conferences around the world and holds a number of Speaker Excellence medals from COMMON.
		Jon Paris (Partner/400) Jon's IBM midrange career started when he fell in love with the System/38 while working as a consultant. This love affair ultimately led him to joining IBM. Jon left IBM in 1998 to focus on developing and delivering education focused on enhancing AS/400 and iSeries application development skills. Jon is a frequent speaker at User Groups meetings and conferences around the world, and holds a number of speaker excellence awards from COMMON.

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