Context

Tool mentors explain how a tool can perform tasks, which are part of ITUP processes and activities. The tasks are listed as Related Elements in the Relationships section.

You can see the details of how processes and activities are supported by this tool mentor, by clicking the links next to the icons:

•   Capacity Management
  •   Monitor, Analyze, and Report Capacity Usage

Details

To report capacity usage by IBM® CICS Transaction Server for z/OS (CICS), use IBM CICS Performance Analyzer® (CICS PA). CICS PA reads the records that CICS and related systems write to MVS System Management Facility (SMF) data sets. CICS PA uses these records to produce formatted reports showing different aspects of performance and capacity usage. CICS PA can also export SMF data to DB2 tables or comma-separated value (CSV) files for processing by other applications, such as Microsoft® Excel®.

Rather than keeping entire SMF data sets, which are typically very large, you can use CICS PA to create a much smaller historical database (HDB) containing only the information that you need to keep for long-term reporting (over several years).

The following diagram shows how you can use CICS PA to produce reports from the capacity usage data that CICS writes to SMF data sets.

Here is a typical procedure for using CICS PA to report capacity usage over a long period of time:

1. Define your SMF data sets to CICS PA.
2. Define a new HDB whose structure includes only the fields that you are interested in for reporting.
3. Schedule a regular (perhaps weekly or monthly) CICS PA batch job to load selected SMF data into the HDB.
4. As required by your local capacity planning procedures, run a CICS PA batch job to extract data from the HDB into a comma-separated value (CSV) file.
5. Transfer the CSV file to a PC, open it in Microsoft Excel, and then display the data as a chart.

This example chart shows CICS transaction volumes increasing over time, and the effect on response times:

For details on producing charts such as this, download the CICS PA Support CP12 HDB Reporting from:  http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24011321

For more information

For more information about this tool, see IBM CICS Performance Analyzer.