Monitor concepts

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Monitors track near real-time performance data. They continually monitor your system and can run a selected command when a specified threshold is reached. Find out how monitors work, what they can monitor, and how they can respond to a performance situation.

System monitors use performance metrics stored in database files that are generated and maintained by Collection Services. You can use Performance Data Investigator to view the performance data that is gathered by the monitor. You can change the frequency of the data collection in the monitor properties. The settings in the monitor properties override the settings in Collection Services if the monitor requires the data to be collected more frequently.

Note: When monitors override the settings of Collection Services to gather performance data more frequently, the settings are not undone when a monitor stops. You must change the Collection Services settings if you no longer want to collect the data as often. This can be done using the Configure Performance Collection (CFGPFRCOL) command or by using IBM® Navigator for i Collection Services Configuration action.

You can use monitors to track and research many different elements of system performance. There can be many different monitors running simultaneously. Using multiple monitors together can provide a sophisticated tool for observing and managing system performance. For example, when a new interactive application is implemented, you might use a system monitor to prioritize a job's resource utilization and a message monitor to alert you if a specified message occurs.

Monitors are automatically restarted after a partition IPL.

Setting thresholds and actions

When you create a new monitor, you can specify actions that you want to occur when a system metric reaches a specified threshold level or a message occurs. When threshold levels or messages occur, you can choose to run an IBM i command on the target system, such as sending a message or holding a job queue.