Monitoring TIBCO SubStation

Gems includes support for the TIBCO SubStation V2 Admin interface. This allows users to monitor system metrics and issue some operational commands.

Configuration

Configuration is performed by adding one of more SS-Nodes to the servers.xml configuration file.

For each SubStation that is connected to an EMS server you can add one SS-Node. For each defined SubStation Messaging Interface you can define an Interface node. Note that the SS-Node is subordinate to the EMS servers’s ConnectionNode

For example:

<ConnectionNode alias="Local" url="tcp://localhost:7222" user="admin" password="" autoConnect="true">

<SS-Node alias="StarSub26" adminqueue="tibss.admin.sxs26.request" version="2.6">

<Interface name="ESB01"></Interface>

</SS-Node>

<SS-Node alias="StarSub24" adminqueue="tibss.admin.sxs24.request" version="2.4">

           <Interface name="IIXFR"></Interface>

           <Interface name="TXF2"></Interface>

</SS-Node>

</ConnectionNode>

In this example we have two SubStations connected to the same EMS server. The first is a R2.6 system and the second is a R2.4 system.

SS-Node attributes:

Interface attributes:

Display Panels

Gems allows a number of panels to be displayed for each SubStation. Clicking on each of the nodes will display relevant information

Root Node

Clicking on the root node (name value is the Alias name in the configuration file) will display the System Summary panel.

Root Node
Figure 1

The values displayed are taken from the response to the SubStation SHOW,ALL admin command.

The following fields contain useful information:

UoW Total Allocations The number of processed messages since the system started.
UoW Hi Water Mark The maximum number of requests being concurrently processed.
UoW Currently Active The current number of requests in flight.
UOW Max List size The maximum configured number of concurrent requests.
Uow Stress Status The current stress state. If the number is greater than 0 the value box is turned to Yellow or Red.

 

Counters Node

The counters node gives statistics about how many times Recipes and Triggers have been called. Either since start up or the last REST,COUNTERS command.

Counters Display
Figure 2

The following fields contain useful information:

Interface Version Shows the version of the SubStation node. Ensure this matches the version in the servers.xml configuration.
Operational Commands Lists the number commands sent to SunStation from the mainframe console or through the Admin interface
Used The number of times a Recipe or Trigger has been invoked.
Errors The number of times an error condition has been detected. For example, this could be the number of times a CICS transaction has abended.

Interfaces Node

The interfaces node shows information about each of the configured Interfaces. All systems will have a Master and ADMIN interface and at least one XFR (Transformer) interface. Each system will have one or more CICS or IMS interfaces depending on the configuration of the system.

Interfaces Display
Figure 3

The following fields contain useful information:

Busy The number of times all interface workers were in use.
AppId The VTM applid of the connected System.
Status For CICS and IMS interfaces, shows if the interfaces is currently connected to the configured system.

Transports Node

The transports node list the transports defined to SubStation

Transports Display
Figure 4

The following fields contain useful information:

State The current state of the interface
Summary Active The current state of the interface
Summary Unused Number of transports that have never been started
Summary Disabled Number of transports disabled
Summary In Error Number of transports in an error state.

Active Recipes

Lists all of the Recipes that are currently active. Right clicking on a Recipe name brings up a pop up menu that provides the option to Refresh the recipe definition or to Disable the recipe.

Active Recipes Display
Figure 5

Active Triggers

Lists all of the Triggers that are currently active. Right clicking on a Trigger name brings up a pop up menu that provides the option to Refresh the Trigger definition or to Disable the Trigger.

Triggers Display
Figure 6

Disabled

List all the Triggers and Recipes that are disabled. A right click menu allows the disabled objects to be Enabled or the definition to be refreshed.

Disabled Display
Figure 8

The following fields contain useful information:

Identifier The name of the Recipe or Trigger
SSType Shows if this is a Recipe or a Trigger
Reason Shows the reason why it is disabled. Could be as a result of a user request or disabled by the system due to error threshold.
Disable Date/Time When the object was disabled

Listeners

The listeners panel shows the Destinations that SubStation is listening too for messages. NOTE: The display doesn't distinguish between Queues or Topics.

Listeners Display
Figure 9

SubStation Menu

When a SubStation SS-Node entries is defined in the servers.xml file, the SubStation menu will be displayed.

Note: That options are only active if a Substation node or one of the child nodes are selected in the node tree

The following Menu options are available:

Refresh Refreshes the currently selected Recipe or Trigger
Enable Enables the currently selected Recipe or Trigger
Disable Disables the currently selected Recipe or Trigger
Unload Unloads the currently selected Recipe or Trigger making the Object unavailable to the SubStation. This doesn’t change the stored configuration definition.
Enable New Object Allows a object newly added to the configuration file to be enabled. See next section for details.
Reset Counters Resets the counters under the Counters Node

Enable New Object

The Enable new Object Dialog allows a object that is added to the SubStation configuration to be enabled without having to recycle the SubStation.

New Object

Enter the name of the Recipe or Trigger in the Name box. Then select the object type and press OK.