Hardware Instrumentation Services

Hardware instrumentation services (HIS) is a function that collects hardware event data for IBM® System z10™ or later machines.

IBM may request that you provide hardware event data for diagnostics. Before you start the HIS data collection, you may first need to authorize the sampling facilities and counter set types you want to use through the support element (SE) console. For each LPAR of interest, you will need to verify each of the following settings:

Basic counter set authorization control
Problem state counter set authorization control
Crypto activity counter set authorization control
Extended counter set authorization control
Basic sampling authorization control

The LPAR to be measured may be already activated and running. A dynamic update can be done to enable the CPU Measurement Facility without disrupting this LPAR by selecting the Change LPAR Security icon on the SE or HMC. The Save and Change options on the LPAR security panel will dynamically change the running system and also save the change to the activation profiles. See Figure 1 for an example.

Figure 1. Change LPAR Security panel for active LPAR

For LPARs that have not yet been activated, the CPU Measurement Facility can be enabled using the security tab for the activation profile. See Figure 2 for an example.

Figure 2. Activation profile security panel for new LPAR

For information about how to set up the authorization of the sampling facilities and counter sets, see Support Element Operations Guide for System z10 machine on the Resource Link home page.

In addition, with the enhanced-monitor facility hardware released with z196 machines, the HIS function expands into a z/OS® software event data collector that will be used by IBM for improved problem analysis. The z/OS event counters are viewed as an additional counter set, but there is no authorization required to use the hardware. For information on the enhanced-monitor facility hardware, see z/Architecture® Principles of Operation.