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Brother-Eagle Enterprise Edition Tip

One of the coolest things about Brother-Eagle Enterprise Edition is that not only can the DBA user add their own metrics to the scrolling stock ticker display, but drill down reports can also be created for any user defined custom metric. Professional Edition users have long had the ability to add their own metrics, but the capability to add drill down reports for custom metrics is a new feature unique to Enterprise Editions of Brother-Eagle.

Sure, you can add more database performance metrics to the display. But, you can also turn Brother-Eagle into a business monitor!

Let's say you or your management is interested in monitoring sales of a particular item. You can easily add a new metric "ItemSales" to the stock ticker display:

  1. Click Menu
  2. Choose Create Parameter
  3. Specify a name for Parameter Name (e.g. ItemSales)
  4. In the "Parameter SELECT Statement" box, specify the query to run to compute the value of ItemSales. Here is a sample query (table and column names vary, please supply your own actual names):
    • Select sum(QTY_SOLD) from PROD.SALESDETAIL where PRODUCT = 'Item' and SALES_DATE = CURRENT DATE
  5. Click the Test SQL button to verify syntax and see test results. If the SQL is correct, you will see "Result: NNNN" where NNNN is the resultant integer or decimal value of the SQL query.
  6. Once you have successfully tested your new metric, you can add a drill down report to show details.
  7. To create a drill down report, place your cursor in the "Parameter Drill Down Statement" text box and compose the query that will be executed when the user chooses to Drill Down. Here is a sample query (again, table and column names vary, please supply your own actual names):
    • Select Region, State, Zip, Customer, Order_Time, QTY_SOLD from PROD.SALESDETAIL where PRODUCT = 'Item' and SALES_DATE = CURRENT DATE
  8. Click the Test Drill Down button to test your query. A window will pop open showing you the results of the query if there are no errors.
  9. Lastly, you can even create "Expert Advice" for your custom metric by specifying a web server URL in the "Expert Advice URL" text box. When the user chooses "Advice", the default browser will be launched and the page referred to in the URL will be loaded. In this way, you can explain to Brother-Eagle users what the "ItemSales" metric is and why it might be important to your organization. Here's an example:
    • http://www.your-company-intranet.net/dbateam/ItemSalesAdvice.html
    • It goes without saying, of course, that this URL should point to a valid web page
  10. After defining the new metric, testing it, optionally adding a drill down report and testing it, and optionally providing an Expert Advice URL, click the SAVE button.
  11. Congratulations!

ItemSales should now be displaying in your scrolling stock ticker! When the user's mouse hovers over this metric, scrolling will stop. Right click on the metric to see available Drill Down reports or Advice, if any were defined.

Hopefully this blog post illustrates to you how easy it can be to add your own metrics to Brother-Eagle complete with Drill Down reports. Remarkably, you don't even need to use Brother-Eagle as a database performance monitor --- you can use it as a fancy application development framework for manager and business reports!! The capabilities of Brother-Eagle are limited only by your imagination!

Have fun!!!

Cheers, The DBI Team

by Scott in General

Brother-Eagle DB2/Oracle

Commerce Bank purchased Brother Eagle software for DB2 and Oracle in August, 2006. In this short
timeframe, Commerce has received positive results from its use. The DBA team is using Brother Eagle
to monitor DB2 and Oracle performance. At a glance, the DBA able to detect when a performance
measurement has exceeded a configurable range. This awareness allows the DBA to investigate the
performance issue while the issue is occurring.

I personally appreciate the ability to configure and define the performance criteria that I want to monitor. The ?ticker tape? display provides me a quick review of performance status without using a lot of video monitor space.

The DBA team at Commerce looks forward to the release of the Brother-RAID product coming in 2008.

Brother-RAID will complement Brother Eagle by providing a ?drill-down? feature to help resolve performance issues once they are detected.

Thank You for your partnership in working with me and Commerce to change our monitoring strategy
from re-active to pro-active. Let me know if you have any questions.

Paul W.
Commerce Bank
by Eagle3 in General

Why go Pro?

Why upgrade to Brother-Eagle Professional Edition?

Certainly the most compelling reason is the capability to easily add your own monitoring metrics.  Brother-Eagle for DB2 comes supplied with 24 very helpful measurements, but you may want to add more.  Let me explain how easy this is to do by providing an example of another helpful metric (Active Sorts).

  1. Start Brother-Eagle
  2. Connect to the database you want to monitor
  3. Click the Menu button, and choose Create Parameter
  4. In the Name text field, enter a name for the new metric such as ActiveSorts.  This name will be shown in the scrolling display.
  5. Check the Rate box if the new metric should be expressed as some count per second.  For ActiveSorts, leave the Rate box unchecked.
  6. Let's assume that we know our TEMPSPACE tablespace has capacity for 20 concurrent sorts.  We want a warning status ( orange ) if 10 or more active sorts are under way, and an alert status ( red ) if more than 15 active sorts are concurrently executing.   In the Warning High Threshold box, type 10, and in the Alert High Threshold box, type 15.
  7. In the SELECT statement box, enter the following:  select active_sorts from syscatv82.snapdb
  8. Click the Append button to add the WHERE clause which limits the results of the query to the database you are monitoring and the specified partition number.
  9. Each metric can have advice.  You could optionally direct the advice for ActiveSorts to a web page hosted at your site.  For example, you might supply a URL in the format of:   http://intranet.yourcompany.com/advice/activesorts.html
  10. Lastly, click the Test button on the lower left hand side of the Custom Parameter window.  This will run the query to test that it successfully returns a single numeric value.
  11. After you complete a successful Test, the Save button will become active.  Click Save to add the new metric, ActiveSorts in this example, to the Brother-Eagle display.

Hopefully this example demonstrates how easy it is to customize Brother-Eagle Professional Edition.  If you use your imagination, the sky is the limit.  Any SQL statement that returns one numeric value is valid, including accessing other database catalog tables or even user data tables.

If you add a custom metric to Brother-Eagle and believe it may be valuable to others, please join this blog and contribute your metric here. 

Best regards,

Scott


by Scott in General

Brother-Eagle for DB2 supports DB2 9 (Viper)

DBI is pleased to announce that Brother-Eagle for DB2 now supports monitoring and analysis of IBM DB2 V9 (Viper) databases.

When downloading the complimentary Standard Edition, or when ordering your upgrade to Professional Edition at our online store, be sure to choose your Brother-Eagle according to the Version of the database that you will be monitoring.  If you want to monitor both DB2 8.2 and DB2 9 databases, you will need to download, or order, both Brother-Eagles.

Brother-Eagle for DB2 9 monitored databases can be run from either a DB2 Windows V8 or V9 Client.  Brother-Eagle for DB2 8.2 monitored databases can also be run from either a DB2 Windows V8 or V9 Client.  We can thank IBM for this compatibility, although we all paid the price during V7 to V8 transitions, didn't we?

Do you have your FREE copy of Brother-Eagle yet?  Please do not upgrade your hardware without first having your database pass Brother-Eagle's efficiency and health tests.  Get Brother-Eagle here.

Best regards,

Scott


by Scott in General

Brother-Eagle Update

Brother-Eagle for DB2 LUW V1.1 is available, both Standard (FREE) and Professional Editions.

In this release:

  • It is no longer a requirement to provide the monitored database name in UPPERCASE characters.
  • It is no longer a requirement to have default monitor switches turned on via DBM CFG.  Brother-Eagle now properly activates only the required monitor switches as needed.
  • Other minor improvements and fixes.

To upgrade your Standard Edition to Professional Edition, select the "Purchase Software" option from the Products menu bar.  If you don't have Standard Edition yet, what are you waiting for?  IT'S FREE.  To get it, click the "Download Brother-Eagle Standard Edition" link on www.Database-Brothers.com/eagle !

As a reminder, on the Windows Client machine, Microsoft .Net Framework V1.1 or higher must be installed. 

Thank you for your interest in DBI solutions,

Scott Hayes


by Scott in General

Brother-Eagle for DB2 LUW usage tips

To Brother-Eagle for DB2 users (Standard and Professional Editions),

When you set up your connection to a monitored database, please be sure to enter the target database name in all UPPERCASE characters. A future product update will remove this requirement (late May 2006).

For best results, all Snapshot Monitor switches, EXCEPT STATEMENT, should be enabled by default via DBM CFG. You may need to stop and restart DB2 for these settings to take effect. Again, a future product update will remove this requirement (late May 2006).

Please check this forum frequently for the latest news regarding Brother-Eagle.

Thank you,
The DBI Team
by Scott in General

Welcome to the Brother-Eagle Community

Welcome!  We are glad you are here.  Thank you for your interest in Brother-Eagle™.

This community blog exists for database professionals to openly discuss Brother-Eagle.  If you are using Brother-Eagle, either the Standard or Professional Edition, you are welcome to register as a user of this blog, post new blogs, and comment on the posts of others.  You will find a "signup" link in the rightmost column.

Please share your hints, tips, and techniques.  Unprofessional posts will be removed.

With warmest regards,

DBI


by Scott in General
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