CICS PA plug-in HDB load and export (PLUGIN)

In this scenario, a CICS® performance specialist wants to make performance summary, statistics alert, and performance alert data available to systems and application programmers.

The programmers can use this data to identify potential CICS system tuning issues, and to understand how the CICS transactions are performing. With this data available in DB2®, and using the visualization and analysis functions in the CICS PA plug-in, the CICS systems performance specialist or application programmer can decide on tuning options for the CICS system, and more clearly see any performance issues with the CICS applications.

The CICS PA plug-in for CICS Explorer® chapter contains the procedure for manually preparing CICS PA data for use with DB2 and the CICS PA plug-in. Read this chapter to become familiar with the manual process before you run the PLUGIN report set.

When you run the PLUGIN report set, you automatically complete the steps to load data into HDBs and to export the data to DB2. However, there are several prerequisite tasks that you need to do for PLUGIN to successfully load and export data, and then view it in CICS Explorer. These tasks are summarized in the following table. Refer to the CICS PA plug-in for CICS Explorer chapter for details of how to do each task.

Overall task (menu option)	Specific tasks
Verify DB2 settings (0.4)	Ensure the settings are correct for your DB2 system. Ask your DB2 administrator if you are not sure. See DB2 settings for details.
Set time interval (5.1)	Ensure that the EXPLORnn HDB summary template has Time Interval set to a level that meets your requirements but is no smaller than necessary. The smaller the time interval, the more records are created.
Customize HDBs (5.7)	For the PLUGINLA, PLUGINST, and PLUGINSU HDBs: Review the Qualifier, Retention period, DSN Prefix, and space allocation settings, and adjust them if necessary. For more information, see Define a Performance HDB. Tip: To use the HDB for temporary storage and delete its containers after the DB2 load, set HDB retention to zero. Select the Explorer option to ensure that the HDB is included in the manifest. For PLUGINLA (performance list alerts): Ensure that Template is set to the correct EXPLST`nn` template for your CICS TS release; otherwise the data might not load into the HDB. Add any selection criteria you want, for example to exclude specific CICS transaction IDs. For PLUGINST (statistics): There could be a large number of statistics records. Consider setting HDB data retention period to zero to load the data only to DB2. For PLUGINSU (performance summary): Add any selection criteria you want, for example to exclude specific CICS transaction ids. Ensure that Template is set to the correct EXPLOR`nn` template for your CICS TS release; otherwise the data might not load into the HDB.
Set alert values (8.3)	For the PLUGIN alert that is used with the PLUGINLA HDB: Adjust the alert values as required. The default alert values are: critical RESPONSE > 0.9, warning RESPONSE > 0.5, critical CPU TIME > 0.5, and warning CPU TIME > 0.3. Also add any other alert field values you need. For details, see Defining performance alerts. The performance list alerts are intended to identify anomalies, so normally the alert values are set to return only a limited number of results.
Create DB2 tables (5.5)	If the DB2 database or storage group do not yet exist, create them using option 5.5 Export. For each HDB: PLUGINLA, PLUGINST, and PLUGINSU, create the DB2 tables. See HDB Export to DB2 tables for details. The names of the tables that are created for each HDB are: PLUGINLA: `qualifier`.CPA_CMFPLST and `qualifier`.CPA_CMFALERT. PLUGINST: `qualifier`.CPA_HST`xxxx` where `xxxx` is the STID for each statistics report selected for DB2 Load in the HDB definition. PLUGINSU: `qualifier`.CPA_CMFPSUM.
Build manifest (5.5)	Select Explorer on the toolbar, and build the manifest choosing Create Tablespace if this is the first time you have built the manifest. See Build the manifest for details.
Minimizing the volume of data (various)	To minimize the volume of data loaded into DB2, you might consider doing the following steps: Limit the Performance data that is loaded to specific APPLIDs or transaction IDs. You can do this by specifying selection criteria in the report set. Alternatively, you can specify an APPLID in an HDB definition. Limit the Statistics data by carefully selecting only the required statistics reports, APPLID, and Interval types. If you don't need to retain the existing older data in DB2, in the Export HDB Data Set panel, select Load Options 2. Replace instead of Resume. When you run the PLUGIN report set, rather than loading a whole day's data, select a specific period that is representative of the system processing you want to analyze or select just the peak periods.
Running the PLUGIN report set (2)	Adjust the report interval to reduce the volume of data if required. Tip: Consider saving the JCL into a data set if you plan to load the HDB and update DB2 frequently.
Connect CICS Explorer	Create a connection for the IBM CICS Explorer. See Access the data using the CICS PA plug-in for details.

When you run the PLUGIN report set, data is loaded into the three HDBs. Data is also loaded into DB2 tables so that you can view the data in CICS Explorer using the CICS PA plug-in.