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Operations Management for IBM i Environments

Abacus System Administrator discusses the “day-to-day” aspects of the popular service offering

It’s no secret that Operations Management can help companies refocus their teams from day-to-day maintenance tasks to more productive and profitable projects. Companies that are still running the AS/400 in their IT infrastructure can benefit from relying on a managed service provider to keep their IBM i environments running smoothly. Today we’re speaking with Tom McLendon, Systems Administrator for the Abacus Solutions Managed Services team, about what the Operations Management service offering entails for the IBM i specialized team.

McLendon’s career in IT became more IBM iSeries focused in 1987, and Abacus Solutions has been fortunate to have him as a System Administrator since 2013. Like many at Abacus, McLendon wears a variety of hats for the Operation Management team, caring for customer environments, managing backups, and just “trying to keep our system monitoring software happy.”

When asked about the scope of his responsibilities, McLendon credits his team’s success to their strong sense of ownership. With the hardware aspects of operations management handled by a separate, dedicated team of engineers, McLendon and his fellow system administrators are free to focus on the software side of things.

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Let’s start with the basics. What is Operations Management and how does it differ for IBM i environments?

In its simplest form, Operations Management entails watching systems passively and responding to any problems that the monitoring software reports or that the customer asks about. From an “Abacus perspective” we do pretty much what any other managed services provider does – monitor the hardware and software of customer systems, collaborate with customers to set up said monitoring, and customize that monitoring to some extent.

Operations Management is basically the same concept when it comes to IBM i versus Windows (PC) or UNIX systems, but since the IBM i is a unique platform there is a slightly different language in use. The operations might be the same, but they’re executed using different commands, so there is a degree of specialization necessary to do this for the IBM i platform because its market share is “declining.”

You’re referring to the fact that a lot of sys admins with IBM i experience are exiting the industry?

Yeah. It’s not as popular of a platform as it was 20-30 years ago. Most of the remaining talent is considered “grey-beard” like me. Because of this, it’s becoming more and more rare to find administrators that are well-versed in the IBM i. That’s another way that Abacus differs from the competition. Our engineering staff is a mixture of young and old, and we make a conscious decision to invest a great deal in their training so that they’re comfortable with the IBM i platform.

Of the Operations Management we perform, how much occurs in the Abacus Cloud versus on Customer Premise?

About 80% of our customers are running in our proprietary Abacus Cloud, and 20% are on customer premise. We can offer similar services to customers that want to keep Operations Management on premise, but the majority of them shift to the cloud as it becomes more and more expensive to host and own their IBM machines. Eventually it becomes a better deal for Abacus to run it for them.

What does the day-to-day operations for IBM i Operations Management look like for your team?

Most of our day-to-day work involves monitoring and responding to passive alerts from the Halcyon monitoring software. We get a lot of alerts in a day. The team determines which alerts to respond to and how to address them. We either notify the customer or resolve the issue ourselves. If the customer ends up needing assistance, we open a ticket for them and start to dig deeper into the issue.

One distinction I’ll make is that Abacus does not take over application work. We only provide OS work. It’s our belief that there’s no replacement for the institutional knowledge that a customer will have of their own applications, so we make it a point to not offer those services.

How many alerts do you typically get in a day?

Last time I checked I was getting some 1200 emails a week.

That’s a lot for one person!

If you really want to have fun, watch [our CTO] Josh Osborne’s email inbox. It’s like watching a waterfall.

How do you keep from becoming overwhelmed by all the alerts?

You learn quickly how to determine which alerts are most important. But we still pay attention to the less urgent alerts as well. For example, if we see that a customer is using 90+% CPU for several days straight, we’ll notify them to ease their workloads. If that’s not possible we’ll bring in the sales team to suggest the customer expand how many CPU slices they need.

You mentioned that being on the software side of the Operations Management team involves having to wear multiple hats. What else are you and your teammates responsible for?

In between alerts and customer tickets, the team works on utilities for internal use to improve documentation and monitoring. We also run and monitor hundreds of automated backups every night.

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We’ve never lost a system, but we’ve saved a lot of ‘em. – Tom McClendon, System Administrator

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Other than the monitoring software, do we use any dedicated tools to manage our customers’ IBM i environments? How do we handle things like job scheduling and backup management?

The monitoring software we use for most aspects of Operations Management is Halcyon. Job scheduling is application centric, which we don’t support as part of our service offering, so we don’t need a tool for this. As far as backup management goes, we run our automated backups using the data domains from the iSeries.

Are there other processes in addition to backups that are automated?

We automate everything we can. The main benefit of combining automation and managed services is that you need fewer staff on hand. By leveraging monitoring software like Halcyon, you can theoretically watch more with less people. And if it’s all set up correctly, which is true in our case, you can catch a lot more than a human can. We have hundreds of systems monitored by our specialized administrator team plus our NOC (Network Operations Center).

Sounds like your team works pretty efficiently.

We’ve never lost a system, but we’ve saved a lot of ‘em.

Can customers interface directly with and perform their own Operations Management when they want? Or is it all done through the Abacus engineering team?

Some of our larger customers have their own administrative staff and we collaborate with their team with regards to what we monitor. In those instances, who monitors what is determined beforehand. But most of our customers don’t want to have to worry about any of that, so we usually take over all their Operations Management for them.

It sounds like our Operations Management offering has some flexibility to it. What can Abacus customize about the service and how does it change what the customer gets?

We offer three different levels of services: Tier 1, which is our general, and basic, operations management offering. Tier 2 involves a little customization and additional support in the form of notifications of critical issues, but we won’t fix applications. Tier 3 takes it a bit further where our support team will respond directly to fix specific errors or messages, such as disk file fill ups.

Anything last thoughts you’d like to share about how Abacus approaches Operations Management?

One of the things I appreciate the most about how we offer Operations Management is that we’re very careful about setting expectations with customers during the sales/on-boarding process. We make it very clear that we don’t deal with customer applications. I’ve previously worked on teams that “promise everything” and then are unable to deliver. There’s something to be said about knowing your limitations and setting realistic expectations for the customer.

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With much of the existing IBM i platform talent pool retiring out of the industry, companies are needing to find ways to keep their IT infrastructure running. Abacus Solutions combines advanced software tools with engineering teams dedicated to specific parts of a customer’s AS/400 environment to provide comprehensive Operations Management. With our Managed Services, customer IT teams are supported with unmatched AS/400 expertise and know exactly what they’re getting out of the service offerings provided by Abacus. If your company is looking for IBM i-focused Operations Management support, contact Abacus Solutions today.

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What You Should Know About IBM i Disaster Recovery

AS/400 disaster recovery comprises procedures, tools, and policies that make it possible to recover important systems and technology infrastructure after a disaster has occurred. Companies should always be prepared for such scenarios since they often occur unexpectedly.

When it comes to disaster recovery, it is possible to utilize the IBM Power Systems since they may prove highly valuable, especially when handling critical applications. Some of the available IBM i disaster recovery options will be discussed in this context.

Formulating an IBM i Disaster Recovery Strategy Based on A Company’s Recovery Objectives

As a business owner, some of the factors that you should consider when looking into establishing recovery objectives include:

Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Always consider the amount of data a company is willing to lose. Look into how the company data is backed up. Also, when a disaster takes place, how much data will be lost.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Consider the time needed to recover the data and ensure the applications are up and running as usual.

Although each of these objectives should be based on your organization’s needs, it is good to note that they may be different depending on the workload. The RPO and RTO are important factors since they determine what replication solution is most suitable for your business. It is good to plan and come up with a budget that suits the disaster recovery.

After setting the objectives, you should now focus on the disaster recovery options that align with your needs. Some of the suitable disaster recovery solutions include those offered by us at Abacus Solutions.

AS/400 Disaster Recovery Management

The AS/400 disaster recovery solutions replicate data in real-time into a DR (disaster recovery) system that is either remote, local, in the cloud, or hosted. In the case of an on-premise solution, DR software installed on local appliances protects data and applications from events that may take place unexpectedly, causing systems to fail.

AS/400 DR Management is capable of two-way replication, ensuring that any changes made when there is a role swap are replicated back. Such solutions enable a company to recover their data on a different system to a point whereby a role swap is possible. This ensures that data is protected in unplanned events such as power loss, human error, hardware and infrastructure failures, natural disasters, and other unpredictable events that may cause some downtime. Additionally, human errors and common data corruption can be eliminated in the process.

Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

Disaster Recovery as a Service entails hosting and replicating virtual or physical servers to the cloud through a commercial hosting provider such as Abacus Solutions. A failover will then be possible for each of the primary systems within a specified period if a disaster occurs. Businesses that need IBM i hosting and DRaaS consult Abacus Solutions because we have created two cloud infrastructures, the Abacus Enterprise i Cloud and the Abacus Entry i Cloud, that virtual slices of a larger enterprise cloud.

Why Choose Abacus Solutions

It is advisable for businesses to ensure their IT department has access to a stable platform meant for application development. To do so, a business must choose a hosting provider that offers the correct services intended for their cloud computing needs while also offering the necessary support for the services rendered.

Abacus Solutions is a global entity that deals in IT infrastructure services and hardware, and we have been operational since 2000. In addition to IBM i hosting and disaster recovery as a service, we offer customized server, network, cloud, storage solutions, and IT solutions and services. That means we can assist you in every way possible, depending on your needs and demands.

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Abacus Solutions Strives for More Than Just Security Compliance

The PaaS provider wants to go above and beyond to protect its customers

Companies across a variety of industries are beginning to understand the benefits of security compliance, both internally and within partnered organizations. To reflect an increase in IT security breaches, the number of regulatory standards for information security management has grown. Abacus Solutions recognizes this industry trend as the “new normal,” one that will become increasingly complex as more compliances are required for businesses to operate in the PaaS provider space.

When customers transition to the Abacus Cloud, they’re moving critical business applications from on-premise IBM i infrastructure to an AS/400 cloud environment. Chief Operations Officer, Thomas Harris, reflected on how ensuring the security of customer data became more than a checkbox to tick; it became a company culture shift. “Data security is critical to the ongoing operations of our customers. In order to meet the needs of our growing client base, Abacus needed to adopt a more security-centric culture,” Harris explains.

Currently, Abacus maintains both the SOC 2 (Type 1 and Type 2) compliance certification, determined by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), as well as the ISO 27001 certificate, established by the International Organization for Standardization, for secure management of financial information, intellectual property, and employee details. Abacus also maintains GDPR compliance for its international clients.

Achieving this security posture does not come without challenges. Keeping the SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certifications involves providing extensive proof of compliance and conducting audit walkthroughs with third party auditing agents. Annual surveillance audits, as required for the ISO 27001 certificate, are performed every year until the certification cycle is renewed every three years. Additionally, employees who grew accustomed to their own department’s approach to security, even documenting it that way, needed to align their processes to the newly adopted frameworks. Formalizing the company’s security practice in order to establish consistency across the board, and not just for certain activities and certain times of the year, was crucial to the success of the shift.

We were doing a lot of these controls and safeguarding already; however, we were doing them in a decentralized, or departmentally-siloed, manner without a core framework to use. Using frameworks like the ones created by the ISO allows us to take ownership of a central process and get behind one methodology of security and compliance.” – Thomas Harris, Chief Operating Officer

As for its future compliance goals, Abacus is working on a domestic (US) privacy program to pair with its GDPR compliance, as well as becoming HIPAA compliant. Of the additional compliance certifications, Harris says, “It’s all part of our evolving stance towards privacy and security.” Abacus also intends to become ISO27701 compliant. This data privacy-centric certification isn’t a requirement for the business space it operates in, but it shows prospective clients how seriously Abacus takes privacy concerns.

Companies who are looking for an enterprise-level Platform as a Service provider should seek out those who, at a minimum, have SOC 2 Type 1 and ISO27001 certifications. Abacus believes it can be the ideal PaaS provider for businesses of all types and sizes by working to achieve security compliances beyond its industry requirements. And as more businesses pivot to remote work, providing secure ERP systems and highly secured environments in our hosted infrastructure can give them peace of mind. If you’re looking for a PaaS provider that will reliably secure your data, contact Abacus Solutions today.