Typically, there are two main issues with monitoring a system manually: having to go out deliberately (and repeatedly) and check to see if something has happened; and the fact that you are most likely looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack of logged events.

Let’s face it; system administration remains a largely thankless task. From scheduling jobs to balancing workloads to answering messages in QSYSOPR, administrators and operators work diligently behind the scenes to ensure that IBM i servers are available to run mission-critical applications.

File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) helps ensure that your critical and sensitive data is viewed and changed only by authorized personnel through approved channels. Candidates for FIM include application files containing sensitive data, such as personnel or financial data, and server configuration files.

Backup and recovery processes are among the unsung heroes of data center operations. Though end results may not be readily apparent on an everyday basis, natural and digital disasters have a way of humbling companies that do not take this risk management discipline seriously.

In recent years, regulatory initiatives like Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, PCI, and GLBA have placed increased emphasis on the need to monitor and secure sensitive information. For example, The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard dictates one of the most stringent requirements of all—logs must be reviewed daily, and a minimum of three months of logs must be available for analysis.