(CA) last month announced the availability of an add-on module to Unicenter TNG for managing PeopleSoft Inc. applications.
Unicenter TNG PeopleSoft Option provides automated monitoring of PeopleSoft applications by enabling cross-application scheduling, event monitoring and automated action.
Automated monitoring ensures that users are alerted if they exceed a particular threshold on a job. “You can set it up to whatever options you want,” said Peg Sullivan, product marketing manager, Unicenter TNG application database and middleware management. “[Unicenter TNG] can do anything from alerting you to taking corrective action.”
Administrators can use Unicenter TNG to submit jobs, balance loads, monitor several tasks and obtain a centralized view of all related jobs. Further, the product can coordinate the interaction of PeopleSoft and non-PeopleSoft applications that work together, a task that CA calls “schedule of cross-application job dependencies.”
This cross-application scheduling function is the most important, Sullivan said. “In the PeopleSoft application, all the scheduling is done within the application itself. So, if you want to schedule a job that has a dependency on another job not within PeopleSoft’s applications, we provide you with a utility that lets you schedule dependencies between PeopleSoft and non-PeopleSoft jobs.”
Jobs are otherwise manually scheduled, which leaves room for human error and also takes time.
Cinda Haff at Indiana University, Bloomington, chose the Unicenter TNG PeopleSoft option because “it allowed us to integrate all the PeopleSoft batch processes with our other batch processes within the university.” This also eliminated the need to write their own interfaces within the system, said Haff, who was in charge of the Unicenter TNG implementation at the university.
“Right now we’re using it for student systems applications,” Haff says.”We have implemented [it] for recruiting students. Basically, it helps us to integrate and reduces the overheads for central management.”
Unicenter TNG can also automatically scan and extract data from PeopleSoft Process Scheduler Agents and from logs generated by BEA Systems Inc.’s Tuxedo transaction processing monitor. This means that Unicenter TNG goes into the logs and checks for problems. It then formats and sends the data to the Unicenter TNG Event console for review and automatic response, Haff said.
All enterprise-wide PeopleSoft applications are automatically discovered by the Unicenter TNG PeopleSoft Option. These are then put into the object directory which enables other Unicenter TNG modules to monitor and manage these resources.
Based on user-defined policies, Unicenter TNG can either automatically respond or alert an administrator when a problem occurs.
All resources that support PeopleSoft services and processes are managed directly through Unicenter TNG’s console. Other Unicenter TNG functions, such as security management, software distribution and application response time measurement can also be used by IT departments to handle PeopleSoft deployment and administration from the end user’s perspective.
“Basically, the Unicenter TNG is a real enterprise manager,” says Sullivan. “Sometimes users don’t know whether the problem is with the PeopleSoft application or the underlying network.” And with the Unicenter TNG, users can track the source of the problem, she added.
Unicenter TNG and its PeopleSoft Option are available under CA’s new licensing model, which the company said has been simplified.
Computer Associates International Inc., in Islandia, N.Y., can be found on the Web at www.ca.com.
• IDG News Service