JADE CARE TECHNOLOGY — SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT TOOLSET

Since 1987 Jade Software Corporation has been managing mission critical enterprise systems for banks, hospitals, airlines, retailers, payroll service providers, higher education providers, insurance companies and many others. During this time it has developed a comprehensive technology platform to greatly increase the ease and efficiency with which today over 400 JADE systems globally are managed.

JADE SYSTEMS MANAGER

JADE Systems Manager provides the core features of the JADE Care Technology. Its architecture comprises a central management system with remote agents and utilities based on each server platform.

The server-based agents are interfaced with the host operating system and the customer's JADE systems in order to manage and monitor the target environments.

JADE Care Technology has been designed to operationally simplify the configuration and management of 'scaled-out' configurations that take full advantage of JADE's nodal architecture.

With mission criticality in mind, JADE Care Technology is fully capable of supporting JADE systems that are deployed across clustered server resources.

As new features such as Synchronized Database Services (SDS) are released in the main JADE product, they are also targeted for incorporation into the JADE Care Technology.

The functionality of the core JADE Care Technology modules is as follows:

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION REGISTRY

The JADE Care Technology is based around a single comprehensive data registry of operational information and parameters. The information is maintained in the registry by a combination of self-discovery and entry by the system administrator. The registry records information regarding the configuration of the servers, operating systems, JADE applications and support staff contacts etc. The automation features of JADE Care use the registry to locate required management entities, schedule tasks, monitor and alert required entities, and obtain various other environment information in order to perform the functionality contained in its other modules.

REAL-TIME MONITORING AND ALERTS

The JADE Systems Manager takes feeds from the operating system, hardware, network and the JADE applications (as well as any SNMP capable devices) to provide comprehensive real-time monitoring and alerts. Alerts are raised on the basis of information received from any of the above sources. Thresholds can be pre-set for capacity type alerts to avoid false alarms of known constrained resources. A unique aspect of this functionality is the capability to monitor in-depth activity within the JADE application components including response times, I/O and CPU usage profiles etc.

AUTOMATED JADE DEPLOYMENT

JADE Systems Manager automates the process of upgrading JADE systems with new versions of the JADE product and upgrades to the application code. Deployments can be scheduled to occur at the time of day or night that is the most convenient to the user’s operation. The deployment mechanism completes all the necessary deployment processes such as: pre and post backups, schema and forms loading, syntax checking and database reorganizations. All steps in the process can be monitored and are checked for successful completion. Appropriate alerts are generated in the event of an error or time overrun.

PERFORMANCE AND SLA REPORTING

Live data capture of comprehensive operating system and application statistics enable a powerful reporting tool to analyze system performance, work loads, diagnose bottlenecks and identify resource usage trends. The data is compressed and archived allowing both short and long-term views. The graphic output can be displayed on the user screen, printed or output in CSV format. This easy to use module of JADE Systems Manager provides an extremely high level of detail regarding the operating system and JADE application usage.

JADE ENVIRONMENT BACKUP MANAGEMENT

JADE Systems Manager provides fully automated scheduling of on-line and off-line JADE system backups. The backup management module allows customized backup schedules for each JADE application environment and provides options for: post backup verification, multi-threaded backup workers, system busy indicators to delay backup start time, elapsed time prediction and over-time alerts.

PLATFORM UTILITIES

The platform utilities are operating system specific and perform specialist tasks as directed by the JADE Systems Manager via its agent. A major role of the utilities is to control the start-up and shutdown of the managed JADE application components as required. They also provide the means by which the customer’s operations or systems management team can make available a controlled method by which development staff can access and control JADE systems that they are supporting without the need for console access or systems administration rights.

JADE CARE TRACKER

Tracker is an optional module for the JADE Systems Manager. This JADE application provides a comprehensive call management system. It incorporates call logging, escalation, searching and reporting.
Flexible escalation profiles can be defined for both ‘user’ staff and ‘service provider’ staff with notifications via EMAIL and electronic paging.
Calls are prioritized, allocated an assignee and may include multiple attachments.
Searching parameters include date, escalation state, assignee, priority, call type, keyword, and partial text.
Queries using the above search parameters can be displayed or printed as required.
Tracker interfaces with the JADE Systems Manager to automatically create calls from events occurring with the JADE applications and servers being managed. E.g. application exceptions or response time alerts.