FERRET
FERRET has a wide range of displays and functions available from its drop-down menus. Many of the menus, such as 'Control Points' and 'EE Nodes' provide filtering and drill-down capabilities.
FERRET Filtering and Drill Down
The importance of history
For the first time, FERRET allows users to spot trends across APPN/HPR and EE links. History and trend analysis enable the correction of existing poor performance (post-event) and pro-active planning for future expansion to meet demands before they become a problem.
A comparison: IBM commands v FERRET
The IBM command 'D NET,ID=rtpname,HPRDIAG=YES' returns a lot of useful information but results in many lines of output (50+) for each RTP. In order to detect common problems such as a build up of message queues, the command would have to be issued for every RTP (potentially 1000s of them) and the output carefully analyzed. In comparison, FERRET provides queued packet details for all RTPs on a single screen with 3 clicks of the mouse.
| Number of RTP's? |
FERRET clicks |
FERRET displays |
HPRDIAG commands |
Lines of output |
| 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 50 |
| 10 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 500 |
| 100 | 3 | 1 | 100 | 5,000 |
| 1,000 | 3 | 1 | 1,000 | 50,000 |
| 10,000 | 3 | 1 | 10,000 | 500,000 |
To spot trends and problems as they occur in a dynamic environment would require line commands to be issued constantly (with the ensuing processing and administration overhead). With FERRET the entire process is automatic. Simple!