Session accounting

With the capability of peripheral LUs serving as primary LUs (PLUs), accounting application programs relying on the primary LU to be located only in the host might not be sufficient.

At LU-LU session setup time, a session awareness PIU is sent to the NetView® Performance Monitor (NPM) as unsolicited information. Byte and PIU counts are updated every time there is traffic on the session. When the counts surpass the user-specified threshold, the counters are sent to NPM. At the end of the session, session awareness data and the last set of counters for the session are sent to NPM. The user-specified options, and thresholds, can be changed using NPM commands. In addition, transport of accounting data to NPM can be suspended and resumed using NPM commands.

If selecting session accounting, the user can specify the following during NCP generation:

Whether session accounting is required for PLUs, SLUs, or all LUs
Whether accounting collection should begin immediately or be deferred
The session accounting byte and PIU thresholds
Whether backup NPM sessions are defined
Whether gateway session accounting is to be used for cross-network sessions
The number of half-sessions for which session accounting will be done
The number of session accounting extension blocks to define
The PIU distribution ranges (if any) to be used

Especially important to a multiple-network environment is the ability of the user to specify the following during NCP generation:

Whether gateway session accounting is to be used for cross-network sessions
The number of half-sessions for which session accounting is done