3. REPORTS › 3.1 Management Objective Reports › 3.1.4 IMS Report Options

3.1.4 IMS Report Options

The Management Objective Reports assume that a set of
objectives related to the operation of IMS have been
determined.  This may not always be the case.  This section
describes how the management objectives may be specified to
the reporting process once they have been defined by
management.  First, however, a discussion of how the
objectives may be established might prove useful.

Numbers that will be used as management objectives should
not be defined without some analysis of the installation's
historical IMS performance.

The CA MICS database provides a useful information base for
analyzing historical performance.   It is suggested that one
or more of the following analysis steps be used to study past
performance.

Statistical Analysis:  The same data sources mentioned above
may be used to analyze in-depth measures around which the
management objectives are to be determined.  Specifically,
the SAS procedures UNIVARIATE and FREQ may be used to provide
a reasonable statistical analysis of an individual measure,
providing the analyst with mean, standard deviation, and
percentile values.   It is our  opinion that the percentile
values may be the most applicable to the process of
determining the management objectives target values.

The database files that should be used in analyzing the IMS
activity for purposes of establishing the IMS Report Options
are listed according to the reports they apply to.

    Daily   - DAYS.IMSIMS01
    Weekly  - WEEKS.IMSIMS01
    Monthly - MONTHS.IMSIMS01-12

In each case the data source is the IMS System Activity File,
however you may want to use the IMS User Activity File since
this is the file used to create any of the reports where an
an accurate HOUR field is important.

The hour figure used in the IMS System Activity File is taken
from the checkpoint record that, during a slow time of the
day, may not be produced with a great enough frequency to
give HOUR field enough validity.  On the other hand the HOUR
field in the IMS User Activity File comes from the timestamp
of the X'01' - X'03' IMS log record pair and is therefore
always valid.

The final input essential in  defining  management objectives
for IMS is the perspective of IMS users as to what minimum
level of service, availability, and throughput they require.

The integration of this information with data processing
management's own priorities and requirements, will establish
the base for defining the management objectives for IMS.

The following sections describe specifically how an
installation is able to specify the numerical values used in
these reports.

    1 - IMS Report Options
    2 - IMS Report Options MACRO Example