Gathering Statistical Data from a Tape Drive for Save or Restore Performance Problems

When working save/restore performance issues it is often advantageous to gather statistical performance information from the tape drive(s) being used for the save/restore operation.

The following PTFs are required to be applied to run the macro:

7.2.0 - MF58079

7.3.0 - No PTF required

7.4.0 - No PTF required

7.5.0 - No PTF required

**Important Note**  Do NOT run the TAPEDEVICEDATA macro if there are any active tape activity on the device. Doing so will cause any active operations to fail with CPF5270 (Device &4 no longer in ready status).

The sequence of events when collecting this statistical tape data should be:

1) Gather data from the tape drive
2) Optional (but recommended): Sometime shortly before the save/restore operation power-cycle the tape drive or tape library containing the tape drive. It is best to power it down and actually remove AC power from the device for 60 seconds.
3) Run save/restore operation. Leave the tape mounted in the drive.
4) Gather data from the tape drive again

Instructions to gather the statistical data from tape drive:

Note: If the tape drive is in a tape library the tape library must be varied on with the tape resource allocation set to 'ALLOCATED' or 'UNPROTECTED'. If the tape drive is used as a stand-alone device then the device description associated with the tape resource must be varied on.

- Sign on to interactive session
- STRSST and sign in
- 1. Start a service tool
- 4. Display/Alter/Dump
- 2. Dump to printer
- 2. Licensed Internal Code (LIC) data
- 14. Advanced analysis

On the 'Select Advanced Analysis Command', on the blank line at the top under 'Option and 'Command', type:

Option    Command      
   1      TAPEDEVICEDATA


On the next screen 'Specify Advanced Analysis Options' run it 4 different times with the following options where tapxx is the hardware resource name (may or may not be the same as DEVD) of the tape drive for which data is to be gathered.


-rsc tapxx -fmt -actual -log 37 -subcode 30
-rsc tapxx -fmt -actual -log 37 -subcode 70
-rsc tapxx -fmt -actual -log 37 -subcode B0

The last iteration will be slightly different depending on the generation of the LTO drive:

For LTO4 or lower
-rsc tapxx -fmt -actual -log 303132333438393B3C3D

For LTO5 or higher
-rsc tapxx -fmt -actual -log 0203060C111416171A2E303132333438393A3B3C3D

Once these are complete exit out of service tools.

Type WRKJOB <enter>, take option 4. 'Work with spooled files', there will be 4 spooled files called 'QPCSMPRT'. Send all 4 spooled files to iGSC for analysis.

Note: When sending the output please do not convert to PDF files. We use tools to format and parse the data that do not work with PDF files.

The files could be transferred to a PC using "Printer Output" in ACS. Download the files to a PC as .txt because traces in .pdf format cannot be analyzed.  The spooled files could be put into an output queue on the system and the output queue saved to a SAVF and transferred to IBM.