IronSphere open architecture. what does it mean?

IronSphere open architecture. what does it mean?

Imagine you have a home grown product, vendor supplied health check, or any other security check that is not covered by IronSphere. However, you are an IronSphere client and already recognized the value of the product. You want to incorporate your check into IronSphere SYSTEM VIEW, reports, performance measures and the continuous monitoring facility. This is where IronSphere open architecture come in. in short, the open architecture allows you to do the following:

  1. Develop your on diagnostic routines (also called "checks"). All you need to do is to copy the ironSphere diagnostic routine skeleton into your own program. The skeleton has three parts: 
    1. Prolog. The prolog receives the ironSphere Global Block" and parse it into program variables. 
    2. Body.    this is where you code your program. 
    3. epilog.  The code that return the results to the ironSphere driver program. 
  2. Copy the IronSphere TEXT module template and update the texts to better describe your check. save it according the user developed check naming conventions and transmit it to the server using QIF$SEND in the SQIFINST dataset. 
  3. Create your own parmlib directives. Assume that you want to create a new list of authorized users that will be compared with the actual access list of the application, Or you might need a value that is changed based on LPAR (but is not a direct manipulation of Lpar name. To accomplish this requirement, you just have to define your own parmlib directive in member QIFCFGxx of SIFPARM dataset. Set a NAME and a VALUE, save the member and run job QIFLOADR to update the ironSphere Global Block in storage. 
  4. Add a parameter block to QIFCHKxx member of SQIFPARM to define your check to IronSphere. use the driver program as the main program and pass your diagnostic routine name and severity in the parm field. Save and activate using a Health Checker modify command (F HZSPROC,ADDNEW).
  5. Done! an extra step is required if you want to monitor your check and trigger it outside of the execution interval defined for the check. IronSphere monitors SYSLOG and ESM changes in multiple classes, users, groups and their combinations. follow the manual for details.