Candle introduces OMEGAMON II for IBM's BatchPipes/MVS facility; Candle's CT-based product is first fully object-oriented systems management solution for the mainframe.

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 6, 1994--Candle Corp. Tuesday announced OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes/MVS, a performance monitor and management solution for IBM's BatchPipes/MVS facility.

The first Candle product based completely on Candle Technologies (CT), OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes is currently in beta testing and will be generally available in the first quarter of 1995.

With BatchPipes/MVS, batch processing throughput is greatly enhanced by processing most of the work in sequential data sets in parallel, with a connection between jobs called a "pipe." Information spends less time traveling to and from tape or disk, and more time where it is needed most -- at the application being processed. OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes adds significant value to IBM's batch processing facility.

"As Candle's first wholly CT-based implementation on the mainframe, OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes demonstrates the many advantages that our new object-oriented architecture brings to systems management," said Aubrey Chernick, chairman of Candle.

"Features such as visual programming of thresholds and alerts, an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use GUI on the workstation and powerful graphical displays of the BatchPipes/MVS topology make it an outstanding management tool to enhance batch processing performance.

"This, as well as other CT-based solutions from Candle, will contribute greatly to data center productivity. IT management will recognize cost savings in improved system productivity, and in reduced maintenance and training expenses. We believe that optimizing performance while controlling infrastructure expenses are essential in today's competitive business climate."

Enhancing BatchPipes/MVS

OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes gives users a real-time view of BatchPipes/MVS, providing detailed information at several different levels. Job Suites -- the highest level -- reports on the collection of jobs and pipes that make up a parallel batch process.

OMEGAMON graphically displays the topology of the parallel process, showing connections, wait reasons and data flow rates. In addition, performance analysis on specific pipe jobs, pipes and pipe subsystems are available for display.

This ensures a better understanding of the parallel batch process, enables smoother and faster flow of data, and minimizes the amount of elapsed time consumed by a batch job. OMEGAMON helps users understand current pipe status and emerging problems or trends. As a result, they can solve problems quickly to improve the batch application performance.

CT Enables Multitiered Monitoring

OMEGAMON monitors performance of the BatchPipes environment at the job suite, job, pipe and pipe subsystem levels. For the job suite level, OMEGAMON automatically delineates all the complex interconnections between jobs and pipes and displays them graphically as job and pipe objects connected by lines.

Using this topology view, users can understand how job suites are connected and see direction of data flow, flow rates and where data is bottlenecked within the suite. Also, the topology view allows the user to quickly spot jobs with orphaned pipes (pipes with no partners), which are the major cause of initial pipe job delays.

Real Time Analysis & Instant Overview

OMEGAMON provides a real-time profile analysis of every job and pipe in the user's pipe subsystem. Profile analysis looks at jobs and pipes over time to give a meaningful understanding of their behavior in the parallel batch process.

From this analysis, Candle's OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes calculates up to five different pipe-related wait reasons and two different data flow rates, and builds a profile the user can evaluate. The information from these profiles gives the user vital information needed to determine if load balancing, cloning, SRM or JCL changes need to be made to make the batch process run faster.

OMEGAMON also provides the user with instantaneous analysis of pipe data. This displays what is currently happening within the job suites, jobs and pipe subsystems. By utilizing this functionality, users can see current pipe exceptions, which pipes are currently waiting, why the pipes are waiting and which subsystem (if more than one) is having problems.

Candle's OMEGAMON II for BatchPipes automatically reports subsystem status on every pipe subsystem currently active, including subsystem thresholds, exceptions, pipe counts and longest waiting pipes.

Visual Programming Through CT

All data collected by the OMEGAMON is made available on Candle's CT-based server and workstation components as a set of pipe attributes. Using the visual editor, users can build situations by combining attributes with thresholds. The result is a situation that alerts the user when the threshold is tripped.

With this feature, the user builds situations to monitor mission-critical pipe applications, looking for problems such as orphaned jobs in a job suite, excessive pipe waits, slow flow rates, subsystems with too many exceptions or other important user-defined attributes.

Candle Technology in the Enterprise

Candle Technologies will enable users to display, integrate and manage system data from virtually any significant platform in the enterprise. In addition to OMEGAMON for BatchPipes, Candle has announced additional CT-based products for 1995, including solutions for IBM's Sysplex and CICSPlex facilities, as well as for UNIX, Microsoft Windows NT, Novell's Netware and others.

Company Background

Candle is the world's leading independent developer and supplier of systems management software to manage the availability and performance of critical computing systems and business applications. The company was founded in 1977 by Chairman and CEO Aubrey Chernick and had 1993 revenues of $210 million.

Candle's OMEGACENTER software includes a complete line of products for end-to-end systems management, including automation, status management, application integration and database management. The Availability Command Center solution helps corporations manage the availability of critical business applications.

Together, these products provide effective, integrated systems management in more than 5,000 data centers in more than 30 countries worldwide. -0-

NOTE: Products mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Candle Corp.

              Craig Campbell, 310/829-5800
                  or
              Miller Communications, Marina del Rey, Calif.
              Chris Gunning/Tim Beyers, 310/822-4669