COPYRIGHT (C) 1984-2021 MERRILL CONSULTANTS DALLAS TEXAS USA

MXG NEWSLETTER TEN

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                (3XMXG NEWSLETTER NUMBER TEN JUNE 30, 1987              
                                                                        
Technical Newsletter for Users of MXG :  Merrill's Expanded Guide to CPE
                                                                        
                                                                        
 Contents:                                                          Page
                                                                        
  I.   Availability of the MXG Supplement                               
                                                                        
  II.  Availability of pre-release of MXG Software Version 5.1          
                                                                        
  III. Availability of the CPE Starter Set SAS/AF Application         3 
                                                                        
  IV.  Technical Notes                                                  
                                                                        
       1. HOT PTFs: MVS                                               4 
       2. HOT PTFs: VM                                                4 
       3. Technical Notes, MVS                                        4 
       4. Technical Notes, VM                                         6 
       5. Technical Notes, SAS                                        6 
                                                                        
                                                                        
 -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 
                                                                        
We are delighted to send this newsletter.  We hope that the  600+  pages
of  the  Supplement  compensates  for  the  long time since our last MXG
Newsletter.  As you can see  from  the  enclosed  list  of  changes  and
enhancements,  MXG is continuing to grow in scope and quality, thanks to
the many of you who supply us with requests, suggestions, and with  code
and/or test data.  We thank you all for your contributions.  See Chapter
99 in the MXG Supplement.                                               
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
We are children of the sixties, who know that just because we  have  the
keys to the kingdom, we do not have to charge what they are worth.      
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                 Barry and Judy Merrill                 
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
         COPYRIGHT (C) 1987 BY MERRILL CONSULTANTS DALLAS TEXAS         
          MXG IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF MERRILL CONSULTANTS          
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
(3XI.   Availability of the MXG Supplement                              
                                                                        
MXG customers who were in good standing as of June 1, 1987, will receive
a free site copy of the MXG     Supplement     accompanying  this       
newsletter.  (All  such  sites  have  previously received the three-ring
binder which holds the Supplement and our Newsletters).                 
                                                                        
The  MXG     Supplement     is described on page 28 of the Second       
Quarter 1987 issue of SAS Communications.  The MXG Supplement is        
over 600 pages,  and preserves  the  42-chapter  structure  of  the     
original  guide for easy cross-reference.  The Supplement describes all 
the additional sources of data  which  have  been added to MXG since the
MXG Book was published in 1984:                                         
                                                                        
    New Data Supported                          Enhancements            
                                                                        
 Bulk Data Transfer                     CICS 1.7 support and discussion 
 Cache RMF Reporter                     TSO/MON Release 5               
 DB2 Accounting and Statistics          3480 Tape counting              
 DISOSS Accounting                      Vector Facility Measurement     
 IDMS MXG Monitor SMF Records           3090 CPU Measures               
 IDMS (RTE) Performance Monitor       Expanded Memory Tutorial          
 IMS Log Records                        MVS/XA IO measures (connect,    
 JES2 Spool Transfer Program              disconnect, pending, etc.)    
 Landmark's The Monitor for CICS        LCU queueing measures           
 MODEL204 Accounting and Response       3090 IOP measures               
 NPDA Type 37 SMF Record                DOS/VSE Release 2 enhancements  
 NLDM Type 38 SMF Record                PDB data sets documentation     
 RACF Type 80 SMF Record                CMS installation instructions   
 ROSCOE Accounting and Response                                         
 VTAM Application Session Record                                        
 VM/Monitor                                                             
                                                                        
                                                                        
Additional copies of the MXG Supplement are now available for purchase  
from the SAS Publications Department, or from your local SAS office.  It
is our recommendation that each person who uses the MXG Software should 
have both a copy of the MXG Book and the MXG Supplement.                
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
(3XII. Availability of pre-release of MXG Software Version 5.1          
                                                                        
                                                                        
We will send the production MXG Version 5 to every supported site in the
fall  of this year.  We cannot ship Version 5 until after MVS 2.2 and VM
Release 5 HPO are released by IBM and have been tested.   Both  products
have an announced planned availability of Third Quarter, 1987.          
                                                                        
The  enclosed list of changes permits you to update your MXG Version 4.4
prior to receipt of MXG Version 5.  Read the change log carefully to see
if any of the impacting changes are required at your site.              
                                                                        
We plan to make available a pre-release copy of MXG Version 5.1 in early
July, 1987, which contains all of these listed changes.  We are still in
development of MXG Version 5, so you can expect  significant  additional
enhancements between this pre-release and the production version.       
                                                                        
If you would like to install the pre-release of MXG Version 5.1,  please
call  (overseas  sites must call their local office) and it will be sent
to you (at no cost) when it is available.                               
                                                                        
                                                                        
(3XIII. Availability of the CPE Starter Set SAS/AF Application          
                                                                        
                                                                        
The CPE Starter Set is a SAS/AF application which is available FREE from
SAS Institute, Cary, N.C., or from your local  SAS  representative.   It
was developed by Allan Russell of SAS Institute GmbH in Heidelberg.     
                                                                        
SAS/AF  gives end users (for example, your manager) the ability to plot,
analyze, select and apply the power of the SAS System to SAS  data  sets
through screens and menus which require no knowledge of the language.   
                                                                        
The CPE Starter Set is both an example of how to use SAS/AF and a superb
set of hourly, daily and weekly reports of interest to managers and  CPE
technicians  alike.   It contains a tutorial on its use, and generates a
wide range of reports from MXG data sets built from MVS (PDB  data  sets
JOBS, STEPS, RMFINTRV), and from VM (VMONPERF) data.                    
                                                                        
If you have the SAS/AF product installed, call and request the FREE copy
of the CPE Starter Set from your SAS sales representative, and tell them
you read about it in the MXG Newsletter.                                
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
(3XIV. TECHNICAL NOTES                                                  
                                                                        
1. HOT PTFs: MVS:                                                       
                                                                        
Overlay  and  loss of SMF records - many strange symptoms - fixed by PTF
UZ46460 and UZ48888-UZ48891.  Critical, must be installed ASAP.         
                                                                        
Incorrect SMF EXCP data, especially  30s,  introduced  by  bad  UZ45011,
fixed  with  UZ47837  (pre-reqs  UZ47834-UZ47837  and  UZ50314-UZ50316).
Noted loss of VSAM counts in type 30, was fixed by UZ47837.             
                                                                        
Originally reported by MMA, complete loss of SMF data  will  occur  with
DFP  Versions  1.1.1,  1.1.2,  or 2.1 if you have installed the PTFs for
APAR OZ96798, and you have  NOT  corrected  the  PTF-in-error  condition
described  by  APAR  OY02500.  The SMF data loss condition is cause by a
problem in VSAM introduced by OZ96798 PTFs.  Message IEE978E:   SMF  NOW
HAS nnnnn BUFFERS will be issued after the initial number of SMF buffers
are used up, but there is no other  external  indication  that  all  SMF
records have been permanently lost.                                     
                                                                        
Incorrect  counting  of  some tape mounts in type 30 records.  After the
installation of UZ50959, tape mounts issued with message  IEC501E  (Look
ahead  mount  message) are not counted.  Mounts with messages IEC501A or
IEC233A continue to be correctly counted.  APAR  OZ97886  describes  the
problem,  accepted  by  APAR  OZ97617  which  has  the fix.  The problem
primarily affected multiple volume mounts;  only the first volume  mount
was counted in the type 30.                                             
                                                                        
For  3090-400s, 300s, and 600s with 128MB real memory, there are lots of
performance problems if you do not install OY0185.  Your CE should  have
caught this one for you.                                                
                                                                        
2. HOT PTFs: VM:                                                        
                                                                        
Concatenated  MACLIBs on different mini-disks will fail;  only the first
MACLIB in the concatenation  will  be  searched  until  PTF  VM24283  is
installed.   As  long as the MACLIBs are on the same mini-disk, there is
no problem with concatenation (as suggested for  the  MXG  SOURCLIB  and
USERID SOURCLIB libraries).                                             
                                                                        
3. Technical Notes, MVS:                                                
                                                                        
CICS  CMF  record  blocksize  is  set  by the JCT BUFSIZE parameter, and
typically is only 6000, which should be increased to half-track on 3380s
to reduce IO counts and CPU overhead in building CMF records.           
                                                                        
NPM  may  produce  negative  square  root  when   calculating   standard
deviation, since the SSQ field can wrap in the NCP.                     
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
Counting of tape  drives  (TYPE30_4  or  PDB.STEPS  variables  TAPEDRVS,
TAPE3420  and/or  TAPE3480)  is  affected  if  the  job step dynamically
allocates tape drives.  For example,  DB2MSTR  dynamically  allocates  a
drive every time the recovery data is backed up.  This can create a step
record for DB2MSTR  with  a  different  UCB  address  for  each  dynamic
allocation,  which  MXG  would  sum  as  a  large number of tape drives.
DMS/OS has similar jobs which  dynamically  allocate  tape  drives  too.
There  is no fix, but before processing PDB.STEPS with ANALTAPE, examine
step with large value for TAPEDRVS and if you  recognize  that  the  job
step  dynamically  allocates  tapes, exclude that job step (by job name,
step name, and program name) from  the  analysis.   Otherwise,  it  will
appear  the  job  step  had all those tapes for the entire time the step
executed.                                                               
                                                                        
Tape mounts in TYPE30_4 and PDB.STEPS does not include mounts issued  by
JES3 for MDS mounts;  they are counted in the JES3 Type 25 record.      
                                                                        
Steps which mount a tape, and then RETAIN, will show zero mounts for the
subsequent step.  If you want to identify steps which actually use  tape
in  any  step,  the  EXCPTAPE and IOTMTAPE are much better indicators of
actual usage.                                                           
                                                                        
It is observed that the IO interrupt count reported in the  TYPE70  (and
on  the  RMF  CPU report) is always greater than the IO activity rate in
the TYPE78IO (and on the RMF LCU report), typically by 5-7%.   This  may
be a useful measure, if we knew what causes I/O interrupts to exceed I/O
activity.  Any thoughts?                                                
                                                                        
UCC7 can cause invalid READTIME error messages.  There are  two  options
for  UCC7 to identify jobs which are under its control.  By default, the
eighth byte of JMRUSEID (the 'User identification field',  MXG  variable
LOCLINFO)  is used.  The UCC7 installer can choose any other byte of the
JMRUSEID if other products use the eighth.  If all eight bytes are  used
by other products, UCC7 will optionally store its flag in the first byte
of the Job Reader Date field.  The normal value stored is a  'EE'X,  but
if  NCF is also installed, the field can take on almost any value.  When
the Job Reader Date field is used, UCC7 traps each  SMF  record  as  its
being  written  and  clears out the high order byte.  Unfortunately, the
trap uses a table of SMF record IDs, and records  which  UCC7  does  not
know about (such as the type 60, 61, 65, 66, 78, 80 and all user records
such as ACF2) are passed into the SMF file with an invalid reader  date.
The result is a missing value for READTIME for these UCC7 controlled job
records.  Pages 2 and 9 of the UCC7  Installation  Guide  discuss  these
options,  and  UCCEL  technical  support has the fix for the 60's and 80
records, as well as advice for handling user SMF records.  If the record
has the Reader Date in the "standard" location (bytes 27-30), the fix is
simply to add the record ID to ICMDSECT.  For records  with  relocatable
format  (like  the  type  78  record  which  can record a specific job's
virtual storage),  more  complicated  instructions  are  available  from
UCCEL.   Since  MVS  2.2  will  use the first byte of the date field for
dates  in  the  next  millenium,  UCC7  designers  are  looking  for  an
alternative.                                                            
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
4. Technical Notes, VM:                                                 
                                                                        
VM  will  not  create VBS records.  If you install MXG under CMS to read
SMF data, you cannot build  the  SMFSMALL  data  set  described  in  the
installation instructions.  Change the Filedef and the FILE statement in
UTILGETM to build  the  SMFSMALL  file  with  RECFM=VB,LRECL=32756,  and
BLKSIZE=32760  on  a  3380 disk and the program will work.  Yes, it will
not make efficient use of the disk space, but SMFSMALL is only  a  small
test file of SMF data.  VM is capable of reading VBS input tapes, so you
should have no problem processing SMF under CMS.                        
                                                                        
There are two ways to hold SPOOL data in VM so that it exists after  the
spool data is read:                                                     
    SPOOL READER HOLD             holds the reader                      
    CHANGE READER nnn HOLD        holds the file                        
Hold  only  the  reader, never hold the file, if you want the data to be
read.  The CMS Diagnose 14 Subtype 1C command which is used to read  the
monitor data in the spool skips over held files.                        
                                                                        
5. Technical Notes, SAS:                                                
                                                                        
 SAS Options which you should be aware of.                              
                                                                        
  TAPECLOSE=LEAVE  should be specified on the EXEC card for MONTHBLD.   
                   It leaves the input tapes as they are, and prevents  
                   lots of rewinds (and mounts, for multi-volume input).
                   The SAS default is REWIND.                           
                                                                        
  FREE=CLOSE       either as a SAS option or on a DD card in a SAS job  
                   interferes with the IBM STIMER routine, which is used
                   to measure SAS step CPU time. FREE=CLOSE has caused  
                   unpredictable USER 999 ABENDs with the SAS error     
                   message CPU TIME EXCEEDED and a large value of CPU   
                   time shown on the SAS log. The value on the log is   
                   wrong (see the Step Termination message to confirm)  
                   but the STIMER poped and SAS shut the step down.     
                   Either do not use FREE=CLOSE, or use the SAS NOSTIMER
                   option, which eliminates the problem, but will also  
                   eliminate the CPU used message on the SAS log.       
                                                                        
  NOMEMFILL        Should always be specified, MEMFILL is a SAS debug   
                   developers option which should never be used, as it  
                   causes a seven-fold increase in CPU time.            
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
(3XV. CHANGES INSTALLED TO VERSION 4.4                                  
                                                                        
                                                                        
The following changes have been made to the MXG  4.4  Library.   All  of
these changes will already be in MXG Version 5 when you receive it.     
                                                                        
Some  of  the changes provide the code with line numbers so that you can
install the change.  Lines to be inserted have a period after  the  line
number  they  are to be inserted after.  Existing lines which need to be
changed have no period in their line number.