Hi, The Syzygy automation products (SyzMPF/z, etc.) perform (and are really good at) individual message processing (among many other features) but we didn't create the products to compete with or to try to do things the way zAware does. We are concerned about each individual message and we can send email or SMS text messages based on them, (or automatically send the tasks condition codes and execution statistics via email or SMS text) and/or perform some fairly sophisticated processing to resolve or identify the issues, whereas zAware is more like an extension to PFA (Predictive failure analysis) and is invested heavily in looking for trends. Once zAware identifies an "issue" SyzMPF/z and SyzCMD/z and SyzMAIL/z are supported parts of resolving that problem, just like NetView or Omegamon, just a whole lot less expensive, both in dollars and resources used.
Our newest version of the Console message event processing product (SyzMPF/z Version 5, in alpha testing now), also attempts to better support this kind of processing for sites that can't use zAware by allowing the site to reuse our existing ability to know if we have processed a message event before (and how many times) and take it to the next level and allow the site the new capability to make complex decisions based on frequency of the message event. Personally (not just because I develop the product), I think the approach we developed is better, and a whole lot less overhead. Although I really do like way they plan to allow you to control zAware (from a user interface standpoint) from a web client. I wish I had thought of that first.:) On the other hand, we are far less expensive than zAware's other tools (netview, Omegamon, etc.), and we support all processor types and models and all levels of z/OS. In all, we do a lot of things the other (far more expensive) tools don't do, and freely admit that there are some features that they have that we don't. Many of the features of our products are items that other vendors can't add to theirs both because we do not license the technology to them (or anyone), and because they are just plain not designed along the same methods as we elected to design our code and just can't support that type of processing. We are not interested in a site using more resources to monitor and resolve problems than are absolutely necessary, we aren't trying to sell more hardware for IBM, we want to see people be able to use the hardware they have in a smarter way without forcing them to pay an arm and a leg to do it. Brian Westerman Syzygy Incorporated ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
