Tools provided by IMS to obtain performance data

You can use IMS Performance Analyzer (IMS PA) and the IMS program isolation (PI) trace to monitor information on various access methods and other programs used with CICS® and the operating system.

IMS Performance Analyzer (IMS PA)

IMS Performance Analyzer is a performance analysis and tuning aid for database and transaction manager systems for IMS. It processes IMS log and monitor data, including fast path data, to provide comprehensive performance, usage, and availability reports that help you to analyze and tune your IMS systems.

IMS PA:
  • Uses log and monitor data to produce comprehensive DBCTL reports showing application and internal resource utilization, processor usage, and full function and fast path database activity
  • Uses IMS log data to produce comprehensive information about transit times (actual system performance time), and IMS resource usage and availability
  • Creates extracts of transit time by time interval data, which can be graphed, exported for processing by external programs, or downloaded to a PC
  • Creates extracts of total transaction traffic and exception transactions (MSGQ or fast path), for direct import by external programs
  • Processes logs from a single IMS system, or from multiple IMS subsystems running in a sysplex and using shared queues
  • Uses monitor data to produce summary and analysis reports for regions, resources, programs, transactions, databases, and the total system, organized by level of detail and area of analysis

For further information, see IMS Performance Analyzer for z/OS.

IMS program isolation (PI) trace

The program isolation (PI) trace can point out database contention problems arising from the nature of task's access to a particular database.

Because only one task can have access to a record at one time, and any other task waits till the record is freed, high contention can mean high response time. This trace is part of IMS. For information about the format of the PI trace report, see System administration in IMS product documentation.