Interesting stories on security and message monitoring software caught our eye this week for an IBM i news round-up. Plus, exactly how many AS400 or IBM i professionals are there in the world?
First up, an interesting view about the security habits we bring from home to the office.
The link between personal and business data security
Do you care if you have a password on your smartphone or if you vary your passwords for each account? If not, it could indicate how well you will protect sensitive data on the job. An article about security habits and password “stickiness” in IBM Systems Magazine this week explores how the lack of security empathy or awareness for personal security can compromise attitudes toward on-the-job security.
Sileo’s company teaches clients how to create memorable or “sticky” passwords so that employees will remember and use them.
Error message blindness…and Christmas trees
Also in IBM Systems Magazine…a blog from Rob McNelly about if and how you are monitoring error messages. The focus is on AIX and linux systems management, but important takeaways are applicable to the IBM i.
For example…
What is your solution to monitor your systems? Is it purchased, DIY, or open source? Some tools cost money but try explaining that to someone who cares when production goes down.
That is the most compelling reason in a nutshell about why message monitoring is so critical. IT runs quietly behind the scenes until something goes wrong and someone doesn’t get their report or a server goes down because capacity was reached or a multitude of other potential issues. Then it gets noisy and not in a good way.
Are you ignoring your error messages?
McNelly makes a good point about the futility of monitoring messages if you don’t pay attention to them. For IBM i error message monitoring, it’s critical to make sure the email and text alerts are going to the right person, and to change the designated recipient if that person is on vacation or out of commission. Error messages are only as good as the response.
Insight is the end goal of monitoring
This UK IBM i blog about the purpose of monitoring of all kinds has a good way of describing a solution that lacks intelligence. It’s a Christmas Tree because it lights up your screen and changes color for no apparent reason.
Here’s an excerpt that brings home the business purpose of monitoring.
What business activity is being affected by this problem, what business process is degraded or denied? If your solution is not intelligent enough to lower the volume of alerts to technical and business insight, if it’s just pouring abstract data on to a screen with several more behind that. You most likely have a new problem. A poverty of attention, consuming your team’s time with little or no possibility of delivering the insight you need to maintain your business processes.
Check out our recent infographic about message monitoring
The IBM i community
And finally, have you ever wondered how many professionals are still in the AS400 community today? IT Jungle estimates the number between 300,000 to 450,000. That doesn’t count the millions of end users. We at DRV Tech are happy to be among the estimated 3,000 or so companies that have either actively sold and maintained applications and other tools for the AS/400 or IBM i.
Interested in an affordable message monitoring solution for your IBM i that is highly effective and easy to administer?
JUL