PRODUCT SHEET CA NetMaster Network Automation

CA NetMaster® Network Automation r12

CA NetMaster® Network Automation (CA NetMaster NA) allows you to maximize network availability for your end users. With networks becoming increasingly diverse and complex, it is more challenging than ever to ensure service availability. CA NetMaster NA helps operate and maintain the availability of large networks by enabling desired state management of SNA resources, allowing for the initiation of automated recovery routines and exception-based reporting on SNA network health.

Overview As your applications become more distributed, network availability becomes critical to meeting business needs, and yet SNA expertise is on the wane. Designed to address these concerns, CA NetMaster NA helps you keep your enterprise network up and running and your important business processes available.

Business value CA NetMaster NA provides the automation you need to manage your complex network infrastructure, helping you ensure that connections are maintained or recovered quickly, without intervention. This automation reduces risk exposure, enhances availability and improves your customers’ experience.

CA NetMaster Network Automation

Features Mainframe 2.0 CA NetMaster Network Automation has adopted key Mainframe 2.0 features that are designed to simplify your use of CA NetMaster NA and enable your staff to install, deploy and maintain it more effectively and quickly. 

CA Mainframe Software Manager™: CA Mainframe Software Manager (CA MSM) automates CA NetMaster NA deployment and maintenance and removes SMP/E complexities. —

The Software Acquisition Service enables you to easily move product installation packages and maintenance from CA Support Online directly to your mainframe environment and prepare them for installation.

—

The Software Installation Service standardizes CA NetMaster NA installation, which includes a new, streamlined Electronic Software Delivery (ESD) method that allows CA NetMaster NA to be installed using standard utilities. This service also provides standardized SMP/E product installation and maintenance via APARs and PTFs, and simplifies SMP/E processing through an intuitive graphical user interface and an intelligent installation wizard.

—

The Software Deployment Service enables you to easily deploy CA NetMaster NA in your mainframe environment.

—

CA MSM Consolidated Software Inventory (CSI) updates and infrastructure improvements add flexibility to CA MSM processing of CSIs and enable CA MSM to more effectively utilize CPU and system memory.



Installation Verification Program (IVP) and Execution Verification Program (EVP): As part of qualification for inclusion in the set of mainframe products from CA Technologies released every May, CA NetMaster NA has passed stringent tests performed through the IVP and EVP to find and resolve interoperability problems prior to release. These programs are an extension of CA Technologies ongoing interoperability certification initiative launched in May 2009.



Best Practices guide: This guide provides information on CA NetMaster NA installation, initial configuration and deployment to shorten the learning curve for staff who are responsible for the installation and management of this product.



Health Checker: The Mainframe 2.0 Health Checker provides CA NetMaster NA Health Checks that execute under the IBM Health Checker for z/OS. Health Checks are designed to offer the following benefits: —

Improve product availability by eliminating outages due to configuration option errors

2

CA NetMaster Network Automation

—

Ensure critical features are functional and operational

—

Ensure the product is configured for optimal operational efficiency

Health Check exceptions can then prompt action to correct a problem before it can cause a system or region outage.

Other key features CA NetMaster NA provides: 



SNA network monitoring, which includes: —

Network discovery including APPN resources

—

Network summary including APPN resources

—

Consolidation of operator consoles

Network automation, which includes automated recovery, consolidation into SNA resource groups for efficiency, code-free automation through the Process Definition Facility, rulebased event management



Network knowledge with a built-in network knowledge base to assist in defining and customizing automation policies and SNA models that provide out-of-the-box automation for your SNA network



Simplified operations which include: —

Generic command support which assists in diagnosing of network problems without needing to know complex command syntax

—

Multi-system, enterprise support, allowing you to consolidate all your views into a single console

—

User-defined customization, to provide the views and detail you need to manage your network



SAF-based security and network partitioning as desired



An integrated, open architecture, working transparently with other CA NetMaster Network Management products



IPv6 support



zIIP exploitation to reduces your total cost of ownership

3

CA NetMaster Network Automation

+ FIGURE A.

+ The CA NetMaster NA graphical monitor groups SNA resources to represent business network services.

The business view of your network

+

+

Delivery approach CA Services provides a portfolio of mainframe services delivered through CA Technologies internal staff and a network of established partners chosen to help you achieve a successful deployment and get the desired business results as quickly as possible. Our standard service offerings are designed to speed deployment and accelerate the learning curve for your staff. CA Technologies field-proven mainframe best practices and training help you lower risk, improve use/adoption and ultimately align the product configuration to your business requirements.

Benefits 

Reducing network operational costs: Mainframe operations budgets are continually shrinking or being frozen while mainframe-based network applications and connectivity continue to expand. Network managers need to be able to lower operations costs while maintaining high levels of service availability. Despite your likely migration from an SNA to an IP router-based network, most mainframe applications remain SNA-based and hence

4

CA NetMaster Network Automation

dictate the continued importance for high availability of your SNA components. It is therefore essential that you automate your SNA network sufficiently to help ensure that service levels are maintained without the need for increased operator intervention. 

Simplified automation: With CA NetMaster NA complementing CA NetMaster® Network Management for SNA, all the operational tasks required to manage your SNA environment are built into the product and require no additional customization or code development. For additional site-specific requirements, two powerful customization choices are provided: an easy-to-use 4G, L or automation models with standard functions such as message text interpretation already programmed for you. This makes implementation simple and fast. CA NetMaster NA provides you with an intuitive user interface, including displays that feature highlighting and color-coding. This helps to quickly pinpoint problem areas, after which easy-to-use menus drive deeper into the causes of network problems and allow you to fix them on the spot. (Old methods require your staff to remember the syntax of difficult or rarely used commands.) Additionally, CA NetMaster NA is designed to be operational in the 24x7x365 environment your business requires. Changes to system parameters, configuration and tailoring can all be done without disruption, protecting your critical investment and increasing the time window within which your business can continue to operate.

The CA Technologies advantage CA Technologies has 30 years of recognized expertise in robust, reliable, scalable, and secure enterprise-class IT management software. CA NetMaster Network Automation is a key component of the Mainframe 2.0 initiative from CA Technologies to change the way the mainframe is managed forever by helping you maximize the value of our mainframe products and by providing a simplified experience and innovative solutions that deliver value quickly and flexibly.

Copyright © 2011 CA. All rights reserved. IBM and z/OS are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document ‘‘as is’’ without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised in advance of the possibility of such damages. CS0482_0211 5