Administration of the Central Component › Overview › Planning your Approach

Planning your Approach

Because of performance problems resulting from poorly written applications and programs, performance measurement and correction are important. The Central Component features can best be utilized by first planning your approach. The types of approach you should consider are as follows:

• Fire fighting or special task approach by using the online job query facility to select job steps belonging to
  • Your top consumer for elapsed time or service units supported by the TOP Scope functionality

    The Bulk Alert command guarantees easy managing of top consumers

  • Your critical path
  • A newly installed application

    You can decide which of these job steps are alerted by using the online Give Alert or Bulk Alert options. The next time the selected job steps are executed, measurements are taken.

• Preventive approach

  Every time a module is changed by a programmer, it is possible that the changes degrade the performance of the program. For this reason, Performance Management Assistant detects all changed modules and determines which job step next executes that program. If your programs are most often called dynamically, you must provide information in the form of a cross-reference file as described in job APCXJLIB-DD name APCCHLMO or APCSPMP. You should update the General Parameters for the Central Component only once. Then, on a daily basis, Performance Management Assistant automatically provides measurement requests for changed modules.

• Statistical consumption value approach

  Performance Management Assistant uses SMF 30 records (subtype 4) to gather consumption values of job steps. Therefore, Performance Management Assistant knows if a job step execution is a runaway.
  Performance Management Assistant gives an alert automatically and the next time the job step is executed, a measurement request is provided.

  • To provide Performance Management Assistant with a good statistical basis, it is recommended that APCXJSMF run for 10 days without the Give Alert function (see the No. days... field on the General Parameters panel).
  • To concentrate your focus on important job steps, define the scope of work by:
    • Including or excluding jobs and programs, and
    • Varying the TOP Scope amount

      A lower TOP Scope is good for fire fighting and a higher TOP Scope leads into the preventive approach.

Gathering this information for input to Performance Management Assistant ensures that only relevant measurements are performed and are reported.