We’ll occasionally place various small utilities and tools on this page, free for the taking. We provide no warranty for these tools, nor do we provide any support. (If you have a problem or suggestion, please let us know and we may pursue it if we have time.) The utilities and tools have no copyright, and we request that you not attempt to sell them for profit. Click on the heading of each item to read more about the tool.
Displaying an LPAR’s Topology
We’d like to thank Rolf Bruner of SIX Group Services and Klaus Wolf of IBM Deutschland for providing this Assembler program to display an LPAR’s topology (processor chips and vertical CP status). Subscribers can find more about this in the Tuning Letter 2016 No. 1 issue. Here’s a link to the program.
Memory Allocation on SCM-Capable CPC
When z/OS is IPLed on a zEC12 or zBC12 or later (any CPC that support Storage Class Memory), the Real Storage Manager (RSM) component automatically allocates an amount of memory that is the preferred location for pageable 1MB pages. This area is known as the Pageable Large Area (PLAREA). You have no control over the size of this area. The size is calculated dynamically by z/OS based on the total amount of memory in the LPAR less the amount of memory that is put aside for the QUAD area.
To help you understand how the memory in your z/OS LPAR is divided, Alain Maneville wrote and kindly provided us with this very help and easy-to-use little spreadsheet. You simply enter the number of GBs of memory in the LPAR in cell C4, and the LFAREA from your IEASYSxx member in cell C5, and the spreadsheet will report the size of your QUAD and PLAREA. Given the current lack of metrics or tools to help you manage the PLAREA, this spreadsheet is a very valuable tool to give you insight into how your z/OS memory is being used.
Determining RNI and LSPR Workload
If you collect SMF type 113 records, and you run MXG, then you can run either of these two freeware programs to determine which workload should be used for zPCR analysis and in our BoxScore workload analysis. IBM made a change to the RNI calculation in July 2012. You should use MXG 30.07 to get the updated calculation in the $RNIRPTS program, and/or you should download the updated RNIHINT program.
Obtaining SMF Counts
In our ongoing Tuning Letter series on SMF records, we have been trying to accumulate statistics by SMF subtype, in addition to SMF types. Because most sites do not get that information, we included an article about some programs to accomplish that. Here is a link to that article. If you are willing to send us information about the SMF subtypes that you collect, we would certainly appreciate it.
The following is a SAS program that extracts information about SMF record types and subtypes from the MXG PDB.ID file, and produces a tabular report and a CSV file. It was written by Scott Barry of SBBWorks, Inc. and is offered to our readers for public, unwarranted use. There are four files associated with this:
- SAS Program JCL, Source, and Documentation (5 KB)
- Sample Tabular Report
- Excel Spreadsheet (in ZIP format) (1.8 MB)
- Excel PivotPlot Example Created from the Excel Spreadsheet (1.6 MB)
PLEASE NOTE: Cheryl would like a copy of the CSV file from any site which uses this because she is trying to analyze the breakout and typical size of SMF data by subtype. Just send it via an email to technical at watsonwalker.com. All information will be kept confidential.
Cheryl’s Quickstart Service Policy
Provides a standard set of service classes and goals that you can easily use to create your initial Workload Manager goal mode policy.