TMF Management Programming Manual (H06.06+, J06.03+)

Introduction to TMF
HP NonStop TMF Management Programming Manual—540140-010
1-2
How Does Management Programming Apply to
TMF?
An event-management task retrieves information about important events that occur in
a system and takes appropriate action in response to those events. Event messages
provide a one-way interface:

Information flows from the subsystem to the operator or application program, but
no information flows in the other direction.
The programs that perform these functions are called management applications or
programmed operators. A management application issues commands to and receives
responses from subsystems, or retrieves event messages (or both) to help manage a
system or a network of systems. A programmed operator is a management application
that performs functions that might otherwise be performed by a human operator.
How Does Management Programming Apply to TMF?
TMF supports both interactive and programmatic interfaces for commands and event
messages. HP provides a number of DSM facilities to help you manage systems. The
DSM facilities include:

SPI (Subsystem Programmatic Interface)
An interface that is used to build and decode messages sent between
management applications (requesters) and subsystem manager processes
(servers, such as the TMFSERVE process).

EMS (Event Management Service)
A service that provides event message collection, logging, and distribution
facilities. EMS includes printing and distributor processes that can print or display
event messages for operators. TMF generates normal event messages.
The DSM programmatic interfaces for sending commands (control and inquiry) and
retrieving event messages (event management) allow programs to perform the same
kind of monitoring and control operations that users of TMFCOM and EMS printing and
compatibility distributors can perform interactively. This manual describes the DSM
programmatic interfaces to TMF.
Why Use Management Programming for TMF?
In some situations, it is desirable to use a programmatic interface, rather than an
interactive interface, to manage a subsystem such as TMF. This is true for the following
reasons:

It is efficient to transfer as many routine management tasks as possible to
programs running on the system, freeing operators and other system management
personnel.

Information obtained through the programmatic interfaces can be used directly by
an application to determine how to proceed, to produce reports, and so forth.
An application that uses the programmatic interfaces to subsystems can perform tasks
that once required the use of several different interactive interfaces. In addition, the