1. OVERVIEW › 1.2 Major Features
1.2 Major Features
The major features of the CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS
can be grouped into four categories:
o Report facilities
o Use of CICS data
o General product flexibility
o Integration capabilities
REPORT FACILITIES
The CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS provides the following
reports:
o Management Reports are run on a daily, weekly, and/or
monthly basis as part of the standard CA MICS processing.
These reports summarize the activities of the I/S
organization and are designed to help track CICS service
and performance, monitor the operations configuration, and
plan for future resource requirements.
o Standard Analysis Reports provide concise information in
the form of reports, graphs, charts, and plots.
Typically, these reports are produced on an as-needed
basis when the data is not in a form suitable for
management or exception reports, or when a more in-depth
analysis of the data is required.
o Exception Analyzer Reports allow you to define, capture,
and report on conditions that deviate from the expected
norm.
o Ad Hoc Reporting Facilities allow you to access
information in the CA MICS database, either interactively
or in batch, via the CA MICS Information Center Facility
(MICF), a panel-oriented productivity tool. Another
online tool, the CA MICS Workstation Facility (MWF),
allows those familiar with the advanced analysis language
provided as part of the SAS program product to use SAS
either interactively or in batch mode.
USE OF CICS DATA
Another feature of the CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS is
its comprehensive handling of CICS data:
o It consolidates data from multiple CICS regions, multiple
monitoring data sources, and multiple data centers into an
information database that you can use to develop a common
method for reporting CICS activity.
o It calculates and derives additional measurement
statistics from the input data to further characterize
CICS performance, service, and utilization. It groups and
computes response measures and distributions based on the
transaction classifications that you define.
o It supports the CMF Data Dictionary facility to reduce
sensitivity to IBM alteration of the CMF data format.
o It consolidates usage and resource consumption data at
both the system and user levels. The CA MICS Analyzer
Option for CICS also consolidates terminal activity and
internal response measurement data.
o It supports a generic system identifier. This ensures
that all data is representative of the processor on which
CICS executes, even when you must migrate CICS regions
between processors during planned or emergency situations.
o It interprets encoded values in the CICS input data so
that information is immediately usable in a logical form,
without the need for further conversion or translation.
o It supports CICS incident tracking, which records
exceptional conditions in the detail data.
o It supports user area, clocks, and counters.
o It supports ASG-TMON file segments in the transaction
data to enable you to track CICS files and database
activities.
o It supports user areas provided by OMEGAMON II for CICS to
enable tracking of DB2, DL/I, and third party vendor
database activities.
GENERAL PRODUCT FLEXIBILITY
The CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS offers a number of
flexibility features:
o Usage guidelines for applying CA MICS Analyzer Option for
CICS management information.
o Cost center (organizational) classification that allows
each organization to link individual user activities with
the responsible organizational unit.
o Application unit classification that allows an application
to report transaction data. You can define this data by
certain identifiers such as terminal, transaction code, or
operator identifier, and then report on it using business
applications, such as payroll.
o Relative longevity classification to identify each
transaction as short, medium, long, or conversational.
The CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS uses this
classification to derive response measurement
distributions to show the service provided for the above
types of work.
o Response limit specification to define the seven
thresholds that are used for the response distribution
calculations. The CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS uses
this definition, along with the relative longevity
classification, to derive response statistics to report
the percentage of work that was serviced within each
response limit (for example, 93% of short transactions
were serviced within three seconds).
o Standard exits to tailor the product to your site's
specific needs.
o User-defined input data error tolerance to allow
uninterrupted input processing. You can adjust tolerance
levels either to accept the small number of errors that
are normally found in input data or to accommodate a
unique situation that may require a higher degree of input
data error tolerance.
o A data dictionary that describes the elements in the
CA MICS CICS Information Area files and how those elements
were derived.
INTEGRATION CAPABILITIES
The CA MICS Analyzer Option for CICS integrates its data into
the CA MICS database, thus providing an interface with a
number of CA MICS components:
o CA MICS Accounting and Chargeback Option. The CA MICS
Analyzer Option for CICS provides data to CA MICS
Accounting and Chargeback that supports accounting based
on either consumed resources or transaction volume.
o CA MICS Capacity Planner Option. The CA MICS Analyzer
Option for CICS maintains a database of historical CICS
usage and performance data that the CA MICS Capacity
Planner can use to make growth/trend projections at both
the system and user levels.
