It's been an awfully long time since I wrote When Good Work Doesn't Go To zIIP / zAAP Heaven . And too long since I posted anything at all. In fact I had a bunch of posts in my brain until this morning when a customer asked me a question which turned into this blog post. (Those posts are still in my brain and will probably see the light of day eventually, including one based on a customer... [More]
Tags: 
pm12256
gcp
projectcpu
ipsec
smf101
zaap
db2
ifahonorpriority
ifacrossover
smf72
ddf
rmf
ziip
|
There've been times in the past when a request for extra data in SMF has been met by "you can issue a DISPLAY command to get that".
(Another variant is "you can go to the HMC for that".) I'm here to tell you why I don't think that's a brilliant answer: Such a command is a point-in-time thing.
Systems nowadays are much more dynamic than they were. Something as simple as... [More]
Tags: 
smf
rmf
hmc
db2
z/os
lla
automation
|
Another 6 months on and another HackDay... Hackday6 was on 24 October - and being distracted by little things such as GSE Conference and an important customer situation I haven't blogged about it yet. So, a little late, here goes... Many of you will know that RMF has a WebPortal for monitoring performance and capacity usage. And you'll know that the z10 processor's HMC is web-based (though I don't... [More]
Tags: 
z10
hmc
twitter
hackday
hackday6
rmf
|
It's been almost four years since I wrote DB2 Data Sharing and XCF Job Name .
It mostly stands the test of time but there are a couple of things I want to bring up. I was in the DB2 Development lab a couple of days ago, talking with a couple of developer friends about DB2 Data Sharing and XCF.
They know DB2 Data Sharing and IRLM much better than I do but XCF not so much.
(It's probable that XCF... [More]
Tags: 
irlm
cpu
xcf
db2
smf30
rmf
smf
|
I was lucky enough to be in Silicon Valley Lab for DB2 BootCamp last week. There I ran into a DB2 developer I've worked very successfully with in the past - John Tobler. (He's the guy I look to for questions and issues with DB2 SMF data.) We had a good discussion about something I'd personally like to see in DB2 Accounting Trace - more WLM information - and this post is as a result of this... [More]
Tags: 
rmf
db2
performance_index
smf101
dbm1
pi
smf72
qwacwlme
wlm
ddf
tcb
dist
accounting_trace
smf
|
I was going to start this post with an apology. But, as any sensible blogger would, I left it a few days to write this. Now I realise that there's a wider point than the "I was wrong" one. (But I was wrong - in a way that I think many other people might've been wrong too.) So let me talk about two things in this post: zAAP and zIIP Delay. How I came to be wrong and what we can all... [More]
Tags: 
zaap-on-ziip
r723ccde
r723supd
type72
wlm
zaap
smf
smf72
r723ifad
ziip
rmf
z/os
r723ccca
|
In recent releases RMF have put the machine serial number into both SMF Type 74 Subtype 4 (Coupling Facility Activity) and SMF Type 70 Subtype 1 (CPU Activity). Actually we get two fields in each case: Plant Number and Sequence Number, which you can put together as eg "51-12345". Soon we'll get another piece of the jigsaw: Partition Number in 74-4. This is a small change but a nice useful one...... [More]
Tags: 
facility
rmf
smf744
sysplex
smf
coupling
smf70
parallel
|
I've just re-read the XCF (74-2) and CF (74-4) sections of the z/OS Release 9 SMF Manual. There are some nice things in there... XCF (74-2) Number of buffer 1KB blocks by path (R742PUSE). This should tell you whether memory waste by over-specifying CLASSLEN is a problem. And some of the other scenarios. Member job name (R742MJOB). I'd like to believe this would tell us which IRLM a given member... [More]
Tags: 
z/os
xes
dyndisp
lpar
cf
cflevel
smf74-2
xcf
rmf
cflevel15
smf74-4
|
If you’re running a workload with WLM Percentile Response Time goals
take a look at the RMF Service Class Period Response Time Goal Attainment instrumentation.
It’s in the Workload Activity Report but this post is about using the raw data to tell the
story better than a single snapshot (or long-term “munging”) can. (An example of a percentile response time goal is “90% of transactions must end... [More]
Tags: 
workload_activity
wlm
smf
rmf
transaction
percentile
goal
rexx
gddm
response_time
smf72-3
|
I've written about Hackday in the past. See My HackDay 6 Project - Mashing Up RMF , My HackDay 5 Project - z/OS System Logger Analysis and Hackday4 and Referer URLs (though I don't know why I didn't write about Hackday 7 or Hackday 8). So, this year I participated in Hackday 9 (last Friday). My entry follows on from this recent blog post: BPXWUNIX - z/OS' Best Kept Secret? . Graham Harris, in... [More]
Tags: 
xalan
hackday
xpath
rexx
java
z/os
hackday9
bpxwunix
rmf
xml
|
Back in z/OS R.9 RMF Parallel Sysplex New Fields (in 2007) I mentioned a new field: R742MJOB (XCF Member Job Name.) At the time I had no real customer data so I could only espouse the HOPE that this field would be useful. (When I asked for it to be added to the SMF 74 Subtype 2 record it seemed to me it probably would be.) Now that z/OS R.9 is "mainstream" I'm seeing lots of data at this level.... [More]
Tags: 
sysplex
rmf
irlm
db2
xcf
r742mjob
|
Since I got back off vacation in L'Hérault in late August I've been working on adding z10 support to our CPU analysis code. It's quite a substantial set of changes - and I don't think I'm finished yet . But I'd like to share with you what I've learned so far. But first let's briefly review what's changed with z10. (This is a very brief review and not a tutorial on the subjects mentioned.)... [More]
Tags: 
rmf
z10
cpu
smf
smf70
|
I mentioned ERBSCAN and ERBSHOW in this post from January . This is a handy pair of tools for displaying SMF records - most notably the ones produced by RMF. For the uninitiated you type ERBSCAN in ISPF 3.4 against an SMF data set and it pops up a list of SMF records. Typing ERBSHOW followed by the record number formats the record - especially well if it's one that RMF produced. And the prior post... [More]
Tags: 
erbshow
rmf
z/os
erbscan
smf
|
About a year ago I posted: A Small Step For RMF, A Giant Leap For Self-Documenting Systems . A year on I've encountered some customer data that's made me go "huh?", related to this. In the referenced post I mentioned R744FLPN, the Coupling Facility's LPAR Number. For the first time I've seen data where the match - with SMF 70 Logical Partition Number (in Logical Partition Section) -... [More]
Tags: 
smf70
smf74
coupling
rmf
smf
oa21140
z/os
r744flpn
facility
lpar
|
If you think this title is obscure bear in mind the original working title was "Send In The Hobgoblins". 1 When I started to write - actually before the "mind mapping" stage - it was going to be all about inconsistency in the way bits of systems are named. You'll see some of that reflected in the finished article (pun intended) but the post has mostly gone in a different... [More]
Tags: 
cics
virtualstorage
wlm
z/os
cpu
mq
db2
rmf
|
If you use RMF Postprocessor you won't see this one. If you use Service Units rather than CPU seconds fields in the SMF 72-3 record you also won't see it. It's only if (like me) you use the CPU time for zAAPs in your CPU Utilisation calculation that you'll run into this problem.
If you examine fields R723IFAT (zAAP CPU Time) and R723IFCT (zAAP on GCP CPU Time) you might find them zero when you... [More]
Tags: 
zaap
oa29974
rmf
cpu
|
9 months on from
this post and I finally get some time to enhance my Coupling Facility reporting. If you recall I mentioned
OA37826 , which provides new SMF 74 Subtype 4 data and fields in the RMF Coupling Facility Activity report - in support of enhancements in CFLEVEL 18. [1] I also mentioned that my 74–4 code needed reworking to properly support the Remote Coupling Facility Section... [More]
Tags: 
rmf
cflevel
cflevel18
zec12
infiniband
0a37826
chpid
cib
cfp
duplexing
|
Over the years I’ve written emails with data collection requirements dozens of times, with varying degrees of clarity. It would be better, wouldn’t it, to write it once. I don’t think I can get out of the business of writing such emails entirely but here’s a goodly chunk of it. Another thing that struck me is that the value of some types of data has increased enormously... [More]
Tags: 
z/os
ftp
smf30
rmf
smf
db2
smf101
mq
cics
wlm
batch
dfsort
terse
|
It’s possible I’ve written something about this before:
My blog is so extensive now it’s hard to find out exactly what I’ve written about (and I’m going to have to do something about that). I say “written something ” because I know for sure I haven’t written about the SMF record field I want to introduce you to now. Previously If when you send me... [More]
Tags: 
smf72
service_class
report_class
smf30
wlm
r723plsc
ddf
rmf
smf72-3
|
As you will’ve seen in
WLM Response Time Distribution Reporting With RMF I’ve been thinking about WLM Response Time goals quite a bit recently.
And this post continues the train of thought. It’s very easy to think of WLM Service Classes as being self contained.
For many that’s true - and only their own performance numbers need to be considered for us to understand their... [More]
Tags: 
wlm
smf72–3
smf30
smf
db2
smf101
was
mq
rmf
cics
omvs
ims
ddf
|
A couple of things have happened recently that lead me to post about projecting the amount of CPU that's zIIP eligible.
(Everything in this post applies equally to zAAPs, of course.) When we first introduced z/OS specialty engines we introduced the "Project CPU" mechanism, reporting most notably via RMF.
(I emphasise "z/OS" because ICF and IFL engines, which don't run z/OS, don't have such a... [More]
Tags: 
zaap
rmf
ziip
gcp
z/os
projectcpu
omegamon
|
I don't know how many of you will've spotted this but there was a nice instrumentation enhancement in the recent System zEC12 announcement. It comes with the RMF support for CFLEVEL 18 ( OA37826 and provides much more detail on paths to Coupling Facilities (CFs). Previously RMF reported channel path acronyms - one per path. And that was all. (A channel path acronym is something like... [More]
Tags: 
oa37826
chpid
pchid
duplexing
rmf
cflevel18
cib
infiniband
cfp
cflevel
zec12
|
I hope you like my new blog banner - in honour of the new zEnterprise EC12. We actually announced the zEC12 (for short) the day I returned from vacation. Great planning, IBM! It's taken me a while to catch up - and changing the banner was an important step. I've known about the soon-to-be-announced processor range for quite some time, as I think you'd expect. And tracked what was going to be... [More]
Tags: 
memory
zaware
zenterprise
rmf
cflevel
transactional
redbooks
flash
zec12
expanded
cflevel18
|
I'm not a capacity planner but I play one on TV 1 sometimes. A customer asked me about the subject of zAAP Capacity Planning so I thought I'd post a few thoughts here. (Almost everything I say here is equally true of a zIIP.) The main point is I don't think it terribly different from regular CPU Capacity Planning. But there are some quirks: While we do have queuing we also have Crossover. But at... [More]
Tags: 
ziip
rmf
zaap
db2
zaap-on-ziip
|
The CICS Monitor Trace SMF Record (Type 110) has got to be one of the most complicated SMF records in existence - and for good reason. Which is precisely why I'm not going to attempt to process the raw records in my code. (And why PMCICS doesn't support releases after a certain point.) But the "and for good reason" hints at the fact I think this is a tremendously valuable type of... [More]
Tags: 
dfhmndup
dfsort
rmf
dictionary
dfh$mols
mct
cicspa
cics
|
You'd think it would be pretty simple to draw a line. Right? This post discusses an enhancement I'd like to make to my current reporting - and I'm pretty sure that technically I can do it. The question is whether I should . Consider my current "Memory by address space within Service Class" graph. Here's a sample: And here's what I think I might like it to look like: Obviously the line's... [More]
Tags: 
rexx
excp
memory
cics
smf
interval
mxg
gddm
smf30
rmf
slr
cpu
db2
smf72-3
smf72
|
I mentioned APAR OA21140 before - here . It's quite an old APAR and so it will (in all likelihood) be on your systems. I'd like to draw your attention to a subtle 1-byte field in the SMF 74 Subtype 4 (Coupling Facility Activity) record: R744FLPN. It's the partition number for the coupling facility. (If you've seen any one of several of my presentations I'll've talked about this field.) Here's... [More]
Tags: 
smf70
lpar
oa21140
smf
smf73
facility
coupling
r744flpn
smf74
rmf
memory
z/os
|
I've been looking for an excuse to reference the excellent B52's Channel Z ever since we started talking about "z". And this is, I think, a good one. (Notice BTW the URL in the previous paragraph makes it clear SING365.com (should be "SING360" ) is using Domino.) So, back to the matter at hand... A customer I'm working with is using Intelligent Resource Director (IRD)... [More]
Tags: 
ird
b52's
smf
vertical
polarisation
smf70pof
smf70
oa21140
hiperdispatch
rmf
|
I can't believe it's been almost a week since I wrote Batch Capacity Planning, Part 1 - CPU . Where did the time go? Re-reading it I'm struck by the overwhelming theme of Batch's unpredictability and lumpiness. This is true of memory, as well, but to a much lesser degree. Why to a lesser degree? Well, in most systems I look at the memory usage is mostly fairly constant and dominated by big... [More]
Tags: 
z/os
smf72
dim
parallelism
non-swappable
dfsort
swappable
cics
lsr
memory
db2
smf30
vsam
hipersorting
capacity_planning
ims
smf71
batch
dataspace
rmf
|
It's been a week since the following was posted in IBM-MAIN: Batch Capacity Planning - BWATOOL? So far there's been no reply. Though a little disappointed, I'm not surprised. "Disappointed" as I was looking for a good debate (even though it wasn't me who asked the question). "Not surprised" as I think the subject of Batch Capacity Planning is a tough one. The original post... [More]
Tags: 
capacity_planning
batch
rmf
cpu
z/os
ibm-main
bwatool
|