Chapter 2: Control Data Collection › Customize Collection Definitions › Change the Beginning and Ending Dates for Data Collection

Change the Beginning and Ending Dates for Data Collection

The beginning and ending dates stored in the collection definition define a window of time during which the data collection process collects data according to the weekly schedule. When you installed the Performance Agent software, it specified beginning and ending dates for the CPD collection definition. The beginning date is the date and time you installed the Performance Agent software; the ending date is set to January 1, 2999. To modify this default collection window, use the ADVISE COLLECT MODIFY command. See the /BEGINNING and /END qualifiers of the ADVISE COLLECT MODIFY in the chapter “Performance Agent Commands.”

For example, if you did not want to collect data under the collection definition DB_DISKS over the year-end holidays, assuming the current date is December 18, 2008, you would enter the following command:

$ ADVISE COLLECT MODIFY DB_DISKS/BEGINNING=04-JAN-2008:00:00

This command defines a window from December 18, 2008 to January 4, 2008 (assuming the ending time had not been changed) and stops the data collection process for DB_DISKS from collecting data until January 4, 2008. As long as the ending date is in the future, the data collection process starts collecting data on January 4, 2008. If the ending date has passed, the data collection process terminates.