13. RESOURCE COMPONENT ANALYSIS › 13.1 Analysis using CA MICS files › 13.1.1 Functional Description

13.1.1 Functional Description

The Resource Component Analysis application uses the Relative
Importance facility (CA's U.S. patented Neugents(R)
technology) and utilizes proprietary analytical methods to
understand and quantify the effect of a list of data values
(independent elements) against a client specified dependent
element.  While a similar analysis can be performed using
standard statistical means such as correspondence matrix, the
Relative Importance facility can not only determine linear
relationships among data values but non-linear relationships
as well.  This is important when exploring data that may not
be well understood and can result in a more accurate
understanding of the relationships among the data values.
Any files to be analyzed using this option of the Resource
Component Analysis application must reside in the CA MICS
database.

The process itself is straightforward.  First, determine the
dependent data element to use for analysis. The CA MICS
Capacity Planner will then accept a list of quantitative
independent data elements defined on the input screen.  The
client can enter a '?' in the input area of the scrollable
portion of the input panel and obtain a list of all data
elements for the file specified as the input file.  Any
numerical quantitative data element(s) can be selected, and
multiple elements can be chosen concurrently.  Note that a
minimum of two elements must be defined or an error message
will be displayed.

The application will validate all chosen independent elements
for "missing" values. These values are not valid for
performing Relative Importance and Neugents will ignore them
during processing. Input observations containing "missing"
values will be bypassed and listed on an error report.

Additionally, all independent values will be analyzed to
determine if they are totally co-related with the dependent
value.  For example, in the HARCPU file, CPUTOBTM and
CPUPCBSY would be totally co-related and as such, CPUPCBSY
values would bias the Relative Importance process and cause
the Importance Index (Weight) values to be distorted. The
application will compute co-relation weights for all
independent elements and will cause any totally co-related
values to be dropped from analysis and flagged on the
Descriptive Statistics report.

During execution, the Relative Importance facility will
analyze the values of each selected independent element and
develop a weight that quantifies the effect of the data value
against the dependent element.  The sum of the weights for
all selected elements will be 100 and will quantify the
impact of each selected independent data element against the
dependent variable.  Those data values with a greater weight
have a more significant impact on the dependent element than
those with a lesser weight, and will likely be of more
interest in any future analysis.

The CA MICS Capacity Planner Option include features that
utilize CA's U.S. Patented Neugents(R) technology.

To exploit this technology, the CA MICS Root
Directory under Unix System Services needs to be initialized
and the Neugents technology infrastructure enabled.

For detail instructions on how to initialize the CA MICS root
directory and enable Neugents technology review, see Chapter
12 of this guide.