SYSVIEW Performance Intelligence Reviews

Actually, all the features are valuable. The product gives deep insight into a z/OS operating system by means of many powerful commands, each of which provides information within seconds. By contrast, using normal system commands would take minutes, or sometimes even hours, to get similar information, if at all. Similarly, there are many powerful commands for modifying a z/OS operating system.

I can emphasize this with the following examples:

1. Instead of using z/OS system commands on a system console in order to get some information from the system or to modify the system, you can use CA SYSVIEW commands to do exactly the same. Compared to a system console these commands provide a tremendously more user-friendly interface to the system and the output is being displayed much more clearly arranged and accessible than console output. This means much more efficiency, e.g. for system operators.

A specific example of this is all the Dynamic Linklist commands you can use to display and modify the MVS linklist concatenation.

2. There are a lot of commands providing system information as well as system modification for which there is no similar native support from z/OS, especially in a case of emergency. This means that, without a product like CA SYSVIEW, you either had to write your own programs providing such information/modification or you even had no chance at all to deal with such a situation. This means high productivity, e.g. for system programmers.

A specific sample for this is the ACTIVITY command with all its line commands you can use to display and modify all running address spaces in various ways, e.g. displaying allocated data sets, active enqueues, task structure, canceling address spaces of even individual tasks.

Several times it saved us tens of thousands of Euros by tremendously reducing the time necessary to solve a severe operating system problem.

As with every piece of software, there’s always room for improvement. But for our shop, the most important features of the product have been working perfectly for a very long time.

As for the JES2 component of the product, CA might improve the overall performance when accessing the JES2 spool. I do know that CA is using system interfaces from IBM to get the JES2 data, and I suspect that the actual room for improvement is in that interface. Maybe CA cannot do very much to improve performance, but it would be great to get better performance in this area.

We have been using this solution since 1993.

There are rarely stability issues, just minor issues when they do occur.

There have been no scalability issues.

In the 90s, the European first-level support was sort of lukewarm. This changed positively with the beginning of this century, and it still persists.

We had a previous solution, and we switched because CA SYSVIEW was clearly superior.

The installation was, and still is, straightforward, provided that you are a moderately experienced z/OS systems programmer.

The only additional candidate then was OMEGAMON from IBM.

A great deal of the product is definitely suitable for z/OS system specialists with some years of job experience. In other words, z/OS beginners will probably not be able to appreciate all of the product’s features. Thus, it should be evaluated by an experienced systems programmer.

We're using CA SYSVIEW to monitor performance and availability on the mainframe. We replaced MainView by BMC with it. It was a cost savings for us.

It integrates very nicely with other products from CA, like OPS/MVS, and it's easy to learn.

There are some parity features, things you can do in a JES2 or JES3 shop, which you can't with CA SYSVIEW. For example, purge output from the spool. So better parity between JES would be useful.

It has been very stable. We've only been using it for a couple months, but we haven't had any problems with it.

We're a pretty small shop, so I'm sure we can scale it up to what we need it to do.

Technical support is very good. They get back to us very quickly and usually have a very good answer. Even if it's one I don't want to hear, but they're good about that.

We previously used MainView from BMC. Our contract was up for renewal, and the sales lady offered CA SYSVIEW as part of the contract renewal. The pitch was cost savings, and it was priced better, so we went with that.

For us, vendor is general. It's mainly the product that we care about, but cost is definitely in there. This does pretty much the same thing that MainView does at a cheaper cost. That's why it won.

I installed CA SYSVIEW. The actual product install is very simple. The web interface install is far from easy. The manual isn't very straightforward on that at all because it's pieces of a different product. Installing it on web interfaces was a challenge.

We didn’t evaluate any alternatives for this product.

Just take your time and set thresholds and alerts properly.

For UPS, we are trying to match up end-to-end between distributive and the mainframe. So far, the AutoSys view, it looks good on a mainframe. We are just having trouble matching it up on the distributive side, but the data collection and everything looks fine to us mainframe folks.

The benefits are kind of what we are looking for. We are not there yet, and end-to-end, we are trying to tie it up with our distributive apps to match them up with the mainframe apps. Therefore, everything is tied through one single pane of glass.

Like a Megamind does, it provides CPU contention batch job information. We are looking more for our kicks regions and stuff, which it self discovers, then they have some work to do. However, it has been very valuable so far.

The product itself seems very good. The documentation, like installation guides and stuff, put it all in one place.

We are still in early stages. Right now, it looks fine from what I see of it. We have only really put the CISS regions on it. We have not pushed out anymore online or anything yet.

Yet to be determined.

Between the tech support and the person I was working with, they have been extraordinary.

I was surprised at how easy it was to work with them. I have worked with them in the past and I did not always find it that way. In the past, I am going back about 10 years. Now, they seem to have come a long way.

We were and still are using Megamind. We still are because it has been customized for our online regions, but it does not give us the end-to-end. So, that is the reason we are going for the SYSVIEW and the APM, as well.

It was dictated to me from upper management. Apparently someone from CA spoke to one of our upper management. It was the end-to-end solution to what we have been looking for at UPS.

It was a little tedious, but it was brand new to us. The documentation kind of jumps around because there are all different parts. However, the support has been outstanding.

There was a lot to do and different multiple pieces to it. It is not just one piece because of the way a SYSVIEW operates, touching almost every part of the operating system.

We knew it was coming like that. Just being the only person, it takes a lot of time. We do not really have a direction set for what we are trying to accomplish, so that makes it a little tougher.

So far, I am the in-house team.

Compuware and another vendor, but CA came in with the best deal.

You need to be partnered with CA. Work alongside of them. It makes it a lot easier because of the amount that goes into installing this product. You will need a little help.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: usability and scalability.

SYSVIEW is a performance analysis tool. It is used to analyze various transaction-based subsystems and evaluate when there are problems that need to be addressed, and it is also looking for trends over time.

The areas which it covers, CICS and DB2, are primarily the best for identifying problems which need to be resolved.

Having spoken with the product owner, we discussed the interests of being able to identify the unit of work ID giving us the ability to correlate transactions that cross technologies. For example, if a unit of work ID is associated with a CICS, a DB2, and a MQ transaction, and having that capability correlate to those different technologies via one business application transaction which would be beneficial.

The stability is very reliable. We have not had any issues.

It definitely scales. I have had no issues in terms of performance of the software.

Give it a try. Do not deny it because of other possible influences that may or may not be valid with this particular solution.

The CICS option is used very frequently. For myself, I mostly use the z/OS part. I also really like the XSYSTEM functions in case I'm having trouble logging on to an LPAR.

We have automated the monitoring of our CICS regions and CICS transactions. This leaves much less manual monitoring for the CICS people than before.

The creation of dashboards could be made much easier, such as the way it is done in BMCs MainView for example. Currently, you need to do some programming to create dashboards, which is time consuming and error prone. A dashboard you can create in seconds in MainView takes much, much, more time to create in SYSVIEW.

We have never had any issues with stability. The product runs without any problems. On the rare occasion that there is a problem, the recovery is really good, so there was never an outage of SYSVIEW at all.

We have had no issues with scalability. Additionally the product needs fewer CPU resources than other products.

The technical support is very good. You always get an immediate response as to who is taking care of your issue, and you get regular feedback of what’s going on. Normally the cases are solved in a much shorter time frame compared to competitors.

We previously used Omegamon. I think we switched because of financial reasons. Probably CA made a quite good offer, but this was before I started here, so I don’t know about the details.

The setup is not really complicated, but there are many configurations options, where you can easily get lost.

I can’t say anything about pricing and licensing as I’m just the techie and have nothing to do with contracts.

The decision for switching to SYSVIEW was made long before I started here.

Start with a small and easy configuration and get it running. Make yourself familiar with the product, then switch on additional features one at a time and get familiar with it. Otherwise, you may get lost in options, features, and parameters. The product is quite comprehensive.

SYSVIEW has numerous uses. There are so many different things:

• CICS transactions
• CPU utilizations
• TSO users.

It performs exactly as we have it customized. We have never had a problem with it. It is always well-maintained and it does everything we ask for it to do.

It is easy to navigate through. It has a lot of features and functions to it, so people can do their jobs. 

I never had a problem with it whatsoever. It is 100% always up.

I have never had a problem with it.

Same as always with CA. They are on top of things. I have never had an issue.

It was straightforward. There is really no additional customization from one version to the next. It is really easy. It is not a very difficult product to install and customize. 

I do the installation and the customization of it. I also maintain it and keep it up-to-date.

SYSVIEW has everything you need.

Almost all of the features are valuable but specifically z/OS (base), CICS, IMS and MQ.

The TCP/IP feature is used a little, and the CAPTURE feature occasionally, helping a lot when dealing with some issues.

One of the most important usage for us is implementation of alarms based on product-provided metrics (especially on loops). In CICS monitoring area, we even use autocancel functions based on threshold settings.

Perhaps the IMS monitoring part could be improved (at least according IMS specialists).

I have been using it for over three years.

I have not encountered any stability issues. Most issues have been minor errors or performance issues (most of those were handled by appropriate parameter settings).

I have not encountered any scalability issues; setting is quite granular.

Technical support is very skilled and helpful.

I previously used the BMC MainView family of products. We switched to CA mostly for cost reasons.

Initial installation and setup is quite straightforward but after that, some customization and planning is necessary if you want to get the best out of the product. But the customization part (or parameters for customization) is quite well documented.

Before choosing this product, the IBM solution was another option under consideration.

In previous releases, the default setting was consuming too much CPU perhaps, but since 14.1, this was tuned quite well. Still, I would advise checking the interval setting in SCHD* parmlib members in case you want to keep CPU usage by SYSVIEW as low as possible. Using ZIIP is also good thing, where applicable.

We use it to surveillance our mainframe system to see if it is behaving fine or if anything is wrong, and it is perfect. It is a very good product.

We have not had any major issues in approximately 15 years.

It is easy to see if anything is wrong. The queues on the system are fast, and it is very intuitive to locate something.

We are using Datacom as the database system, so maybe a little bit more integration with that.

It can also be a little bit more better, but it is very good. I do not any products that can do all the things that it is doing.

It is very stable. We have small bugs now and then, but normally we just open a case at CA and it gets solved very quickly.

The scalability is absolutely fine.

Technical support is very good. I would rate them an eight out of 10. Sometimes you think they should be a little bit faster to solve the issues, but it is also difficult sometimes to duplicate what the issue is.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

I was only involved with the testing of the upgrade. We have some assistant programmers to do the upgrade.

I think it is quite good. Absolutely, get it. It is a great tool.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: I'm not sure it is about the vendor. Maybe it is about the product. Of course, you have to coach your support, but it is mostly how the product is.