 | Highlights
 Sentinel™ - Performance Edition provides a comprehensive, easy-to-use issue discovery, analysis and response automation solution that enables rapid identification and remediation of database performance problems in your IBM Informix® data servers' environment. With this powerful multiplatform agent-less tool, database professionals can quickly automate wide-ranging 24x7 monitoring of Informix data server operations in real time to pinpoint the underlying causes of performance problems such as: an I/O bottlenecks, CPU utilization, excessive locks and waits, resource-intensive SQL transactions, etc., execute scheduled database administration tasks, enable flexible alerting and manage scenarios for autonomic responses to server anomaly events. In short, Sentinel™ helps keep IBM Informix data servers performing at peak levels and efficiently resolve database availability problems before they occur and adversely impact end users. 
Sentinel with wide-ranging capabilities that helps both seasoned database professionals and novices alike manage IBM Informix data servers environment with unparallel ease and improved productivity - from initial design, development and testing, all the way through to production deployment and successful operational service. Key features include: - Performance Monitors - Sentinel provides over 160 real-time operational parameters measurements to automate not only 24x7 monitoring of IBM Informix data servers, but also the underlying host systems on which they reside. A Performance Monitor is a user-defined named collection of performance measurement sensors (or probes) such as: a table I/O, CPU utilization, excessive locks and waits, paging-out rate and the I/O transfer rates for the various system disks, related event alert conditions, object filters and real-time graph definitions. Each sensor within a Performance Monitor can have its own definition of the sampling rate interval, whether to store its collected time-series data in the repository, alert condition thresholds for notifying users of performance problems and optional triggering of predefined autonomic remedial tasks.
- Each Performance Monitor is defined against a single IBM Informix data server instance and its host platform at the level of:
- Data Server
- DBSpace
- Chunk
- Table
- Index
- Session
- CPU
- Physical and Virtual Memory
- Storage Devices
- Network I/O
- SQL Capture - The SQL Capture is specialized Sentinel monitor that provides dynamic retrieval of SQL statements executing on the IBM Informix data server. It can capture running SQL statements based on user login name, client host, Informix session ID, or SQL statements execution statistics such as estimated cost, estimated number of retrieved rows or number of sequential scans. Captured SQL statements are recorded in the Sentinel repository for review or subsequent tuning and optimization in the Sever Studio's Query Execution Plan Analyzer which can automatically examine effectiveness of the execution plan selected by the data server's query optimizer.
- Server Event Management - Event Alerts provide a mechanism for proactive user notification when one or multiple data server performance parameters exceed user-defined threshold levels or the monitored database instance goes off-line. Each user-defined Event Alert has its own severity level, a list of notification methods (via email, mobile phone or pager text messages) and an optional trigger to execute autonomic action or task in response to alert event occurrence. In addition to Alerts defined as part of Performance Monitors, Sentinel also provides task-level alerts that provide user notification when scheduled Automation Tasks or alert-triggered autonomic response actions fail. All Alert Events are logged in the Sentinel repository for purposes of analysis and planning.
- Task Automation - Sentinel provides powerful centralized facilities for automating administration, maintenance and event response management of the IBM Informix data servers' environment. An Automation Task is a user-defined executable action in a form of either an OS-level command or SQL script that can perform a useful task, such as a database backup, run UPDATE STATISTICS, or execute any existing administration script. Sentinel can execute simultaneously several scheduled or one-time Automation Tasks on one or multiple target servers. A specific set of remedial actions can be predefined by the user to provide autonomic response to the data server anomaly events detected by the Performance Monitors. Each Automation Task's execution history along with its outputs is logged in the Sentinel repository for subsequent review and analysis.
- Performance Diagnostics - Sentinel Console contained in the Enterprise Edition of Server Studio™ provides an extensive array of sophisticated diagnostics tools for examination of performance data sets stored in the Sentinel repository. Collected measurements data is presented either as multi-parameter time-series charts or hourly, daily or monthly histograms to perform diagnostic analysis and resource-utilization profiling of the IBM Informix data server. Performance data sets can be also exported for external analysis.
Benefits
Sentinel delivers the following benefits: - Monitor multiple IBM Informix data server instances simultaneously.
- Simplify database administration tasks by eliminating the need to write custom diagnostic scripts.
- Maximize the availability and performance of your entire IBM Informix data servers' infrastructure and keep your databases running at peak levels.
- Pinpoint the underlying causes of IBM Informix data server performance bottlenecks and resources contention issues in real-time with an extensive array of sophisticated analytical tools.
- Improve responsiveness with real-time alerts and autonomic execution of predefined remedial tasks.
- Provide fast and efficient resolution of data server performance problems before they seriously impact end users.
- Automate administration, maintenance and event response management of your IBM Informix data servers' environment.
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