Presentations from the OHVCMG Regional Meeting:

Bill Johns - Performance Monitoring for Today's IT - What is Nirvana?
Performance monitoring has been around since the beginning of IT. Over time component level monitoring tools have been finely honed to provide technical experts with the measurements needed to keep elements of systems finely tuned.  However, as IT becomes more closely aligned with business deliverables, IT performance monitoring needs are shifting to a more business oriented view. The purpose of this discussion is to identify the gaps in monitoring created by the evolution of IT and business and define the new needs of performance monitoring.

Ned Diehl - DB2 CPU and Response Metrics
DB2 requests originate from a variety of diverse sources including batch, CICS, DDF, and SAP. Related DB2 CPU usage can be recorded in RMF, DB2, SMF 30, and other subsystem records. Proper selection and interpretation of these values will vary with transaction source, DB2 environment, product levels, and analysis objectives. Analysts must be careful to include all desired values and avoid multiple counting of the same logical utilization. This paper will discuss the sources and analysis of DB2 CPU metrics and corresponding response times. Examples will include CICS, DDF, and SAP.

Michael Sharp - IBM z9 Technical Hardware Update - Overview PDF
IBM z9 Technical hardware update IBM z9 Technical hardware update

Scott Chapman - Adding Value to Performance Management with Business Metrics
CMG members are well versed in measuring and reporting system performance and capacity.  A great deal of system and human effort is expended to collect detailed technical measurements. These measurements are usually stored in some form of a Performance Database, or PDB.

However, these data merely reflect the technical measures of our systems and do little to help us understand the larger purpose of those systems: supporting our business.  By simply examining the basic performance measures, we can tell very little about the systems’ business value.  To understand that business value we need to collect data about the work being performed in business terms.  That data could be stored, along with selected technical measurements, in a Business Metrics Database, or BMDB.

This paper will introduce the concept of the BMDB.  The potential benefits of the BMDB will be discussed. A simple methodology for getting a BMDB started will be proposed. A follow-on paper will discuss the more technical aspects of the BMDB design, reporting, and sources of data for the BMDB.

A Business Metrics Database, or BMDB, has the potential for adding significant value to an organization’s performance management and capacity planning processes.  The BMDB needs to be flexible, extensible, and efficient.  Reporting needs to be simple and easy to update as new metrics are added. This paper will present one possible BMDB design and discuss a simple web-based reporting architecture based on XML and JavaScript that could be extended to other applications as well.  Potential sources for both the technical measures and business metrics of mainframe applications will be discussed.