Collection Services support for historical data
Collection Services can be configured to create and maintain a historical performance data collection. The task in IBM® Navigator for i can be used to analyze the historical performance data in chart or table form.
A historical performance data collection contains data that is collected by Collection Services. The data is reduced and summarized with the intent of providing data to be kept for a long time. The data is intended to be just a subset of all the original Collection Services collected data.
Configuring Collection Services historical data
Configure Collection Services to create historical data by using one of the following options:
- Configuring Collection Services in IBM Navigator for i
- Using the Configure Performance Collection (CFGPFRCOL) command
- Using the Change Collection Services Attributes (QypsChgColSrvAttributes) API
When historical data creation is enabled, the Collection Services collector submits a batch job that is named QYPSPFRHST at cycle time that creates historical data. This job processes the management collection object that just ended and populates the historical collection with the data from the management collection object.
Historical performance database files and collections
The historical performance data collection is the set of QAPMHxxxxx database files in library QPFRHIST.
Summary historical data: System level or summarized metrics that are useful in identifying trends or detecting changes in a system over a long time. This type of data is stored in database files that begin with QAPMHMxxxx.
Detailed historical data: The data from which metrics are derived and other relevant supplementary data. This data is used to look deeper into a problem that was identified by looking at summary historical data. Only the top number of contributors for each metric is stored as historical detailed data, as defined by the value of the historical detailed data filter. This type of data is stored in database files that begin with QAPMHDxxxx.
Data retention for historical data collections
You can keep up to 395 days (13 months) of detailed data and 600 months (50 years)
of summary data. 
Expired historical data is deleted by the expiration thread that runs in the Collection Services collector job (QYPSPFRCOL). This thread is responsible for handling the deletion of all expired Collection Services collections. The collector thread deletes any records in the historical data files that are older than the summary and detailed data retention periods. The summary and detailed data retention periods are defined in the Collection Services historical configuration settings.