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

MXG NEWSLETTER TWELVE

****************NEWSLETTER TWELVE***************************************
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
             MXG NEWSLETTER NUMBER TWELVE MAY 1, 1988                   
                                                                        
Technical Newsletter for Users of MXG :  Merrill's Expanded Guide to CPE
                                                                        
                                                                        
I.  MXG SOFTWARE                                                 page  2
                                                                        
    1. MXG Software Planning for 1988.                                  
    2. MXG Software default media will be 3480 cartridge.               
    3. Site licensing of MXG Software.                                  
                                                                        
II. ANNOUNCEMENT OF MXG 6.2 PRERELEASE NOW AVAILABLE             page  3
                                                                        
    1.-18. Major enhancements in 6.2                                    
                                                                        
III.TECHNICAL NOTES                                                     
                                                                        
    1. HOT PTFs: MVS                                             page  4
    2. HOT PTFs: VM                                                     
    3. Technical Notes, MVS                                             
       a. Merging TYPE21 and TYPE74 for Tape Mount duration             
    4. Technical Notes, VM                                       page  5
    5. Technical Notes, SAS                                             
       a. Eliminating tape mounts for SAS tape data libraries.          
       b. SAS ZAPS for 3380-K DASD Devices.                             
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
         COPYRIGHT (C) 1988 BY MERRILL CONSULTANTS DALLAS TEXAS         
                                                                        
          MXG IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF MERRILL CONSULTANTS          
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
I. MXG SOFTWARE                                                         
                                                                        
1. Planning for 1988.                                                   
                                                                        
The MXG 6.2 prerelease announced below will be shipped upon request.  We
plan to ship MXG Production Version 6 to all customers in January, 1989.
We anticipate a 6.3 prerelease in the fall, supporting the DB2 type  102
SMF  record  and  the FACOM operating system records.  IBM has announced
ESA/370 and PR/SM in third and fourth quarter, and VM Release 6 as  well
as  VM/XA  SP2  in the fourth quarter.  Additional newsletters this year
will keep you informed of specific availabilities of prereleases.       
                                                                        
2. MXG Software default media will be 3480 cartridge.                   
                                                                        
We are changing the default media on which we ship MXG Software from the
3420 (round) tapes to 3480 (square) cartridge tapes.  If you have 3480's
you need do nothing.  If you do not yet have 3480s, you  MUST  fill  out
the  enclosed postcard to get our software on round tapes.  Not only are
the 3480s more reliable, much faster to build, easier to load, and  hold
more  data  (200MB  versus 13MB for 300 foot reels, 6.2 needs 173 feet),
they are actually cheaper too!                                          
                                                                        
3. Site licensing of MXG Software.                                      
                                                                        
The MXG software is licensed by physical site (eg.,  data  center  at  a
single  physical  address).   We charge one fee per site, independent of
the number of CPUs at that site.  We do not check for CPU serials.      
                                                                        
Additionally, you accepted these terms when you opened the software:    
                                                                        
  The MXG software in this package is to be used for analysis of data   
  CREATED  only  at  the installation address at which licensed.  The   
  use of this product at multiple sites, or for consulting, or as  an   
  execution  service  (processing  data  created at a different site)   
  requires a special agreement with Merrill Consultants.                
                                                                        
There is a discount on the MXG software for a second site license.      
                                                                        
We included these definitions because in a very few sites, the people in
administration do not always keep you technicans informed  of  the  site
licensing  terms,  and  this might save you an extra phone call.  If you
now realize you need a special agreement, please discuss with us. There 
is usually no fee involved for these special agreements.                
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
II. MXG VERSION 6.2 PRERELEASE NOW AVAILABLE                            
                                                                        
Prerelease  6.2 of MXG Software Version 6 is now available upon request.
Call us (or your local SAS office if outside North America) and we  will
be  happy  to send this prerelease.  The primary enhancements are these:
                                                                        
 1. Support for VM/XA SP1 Monitor data. IBM has no VM MAP product; this 
    MXG support provides that function for VM/XA data records. This new 
    VM/XA Monitor creates many new data records in brand new format. The
    CP MONITOR Command determines which domains, records, and which data
    will be created in a DCSS. The new MONWRITE CMS command extracts the
    data from the DCSS and writes the data to a CMS file which is read  
    directly by MXG to create the 75 VX...... data sets and their 1300+ 
    variables from the 75 different Monitor records. IBM describes these
    data records in the Appendix of SC23-0370-0. The IBM field names for
    monitor data are of the form of dddrrr_ffffffff; ddd is the name of 
    the Domain and rrr is the name of the record type in that domain and
    ffffffff is the field name. MXG creates data sets named VXdddrrr and
    whose variables are named ffffffff, so that (finally) there will be 
    no transformation between IBM and MXG nomenclature!  This is a major
    new addition to MXG which has been validated at the data set level, 
    but which will have additional reporting and summarization added in 
    the near future. IBM's documentation will be found in:              
      LY27-8058 - Features Summary, pp 478-482                          
      SC23-0353 - Administration, pp 137-145.                           
      SC23-0370 - CP Programming Services, pp 145-149, pp 237-421.      
      LY27-8054 - CP Diagnostic Reference.                              
      SC23-0354 - CMS Command Reference, pp 371-373.                    
      SC23-0358 - CP  Command Reference, pp 271-288.                    
    The preliminary documentation of this major MXG enhancement is in   
    the comments in member VMACVMXA; new data sets, variables and their 
    lables are in member DOCVER. Complete Chapter 40-style documentation
    be available with the production Version 6 shipment later.          
 2. Support for NPM 1.3 new type 28 SMF record. This record replaces the
    type 38 (NPA/NPM), type 39 (NLDM) and VSAM VTAM Session statistics  
    (MXG's XNPMSESS) data sources. Twenty four new data sets are created
    from TYPE28. All data sets now start with NPM..... and many variable
    names were changed. Member VMAC28 cross-references these changes for
    your reports.                                                       
 3. IDMS 10.1 Performance Monitor enhancements.                         
 4. IMS Log processing is validated and matches DFSILTA0 counting.      
 5. ANALDB2R DB2 reports now match DB2PM reports.                       
 6. VM/Monitor validation with corrected state variable calculations and
    enhanced summary reports that now match VM MAP numbers exactly.     
 7. MVS 2.2 cleanups and PTF support.                                   
 8. VPS (a SYSOUT handler) support in TYPE6 data set.                   
 9. EXD (a SYSOUT handler) support in TYPE6 data set.                   
10. CA-DISPATCH (a SYSOUT handler) support in TYPE6 data set.           
11. $AVRS (a SYSOUT handler) support in TYPESAVR data set.              
12. Landmark Version 7.1 support.                                       
                                                                        
                                                                        
13. CICS 1.7 UOWTIME variable decoded for the (undocumented) third data 
    format for both CMF and Landmark records.                           
14. EPILOG 1000 for CICS data records code now works.                   
15. Build of MONTHLY PDB with only one tape drive logic corrected.      
16. Analysis of tape mount time from TYPE74 and TYPE21 data discussed.  
17. Support for RMDS Release 3.0 SMF record.                            
18. ASMVMCOPY (assembly source) and REXXCOPY (an exec) permits a VM/SP  
    site to "dump" their VM/Monitor spool records to a CMS file. Without
    this program, you either used VM MAPs MONTAPE/MONDISK command or you
    used the SAS MONITOR INFILE exit to "dump" the VM/SP Monitor data.  
                                                                        
All reported 5.5 problems have been fixed in this pre-release.          
                                                                        
See the Change log and read the comments in the  referenced  MXG  source
member for complete details of these enhancements and changes.          
                                                                        
                                                                        
III. TECHNICAL NOTES                                                    
                                                                        
                                                                        
1. HOT PTFs: MVS                                                        
                                                                        
2. HOT PTFs: VM                                                         
                                                                        
3. Technical Notes: MVS                                                 
                                                                        
a. Merging TYPE21 and TYPE74 for Tape Mount duration.                   
                                                                        
TYPE74   contains  total  mount  outstanding  duration  during  the  RMF
interval,  and  TYPE21  contains  a  record  for  each  dismount  event.
However,  TYPE21  does  not tell when the tape was actually mounted.  We
can assign the dismount time as the mount time, then sum the mounts to a
reasonable  time  interval  (an  hour)  and calculate an estimate of the
average mount time, AVGMNTTM, for each tape device for each  system  for
each hour (BY SYSTEM DEVNR HOUR).                                       
                                                                        
New  MXG  member  ANALMNTS  (in MXG 6.2) estimates AVGMNTTM from 21s and
74s.  Analysis shows that if the  dismount  counts  from  the  21  occur
exactly  in  the  same RMF interval as the mount actually occurred, then
AVGMNTTM is exactly the mount time from MOUNT request to  DEVICE  READY.
While   95%  of  the  hourly  intervals  AVGMNTTM  showed  nearly  exact
comparisons (average mount times within  fractions  of  a  second),  the
other  5%  of  hourly  observations showed averages different by several
minutes!  This is because you never know whether the dismount count  was
in  the  same  interval  as  the  mount duration.  Statistically, if the
number of dismounts during the interval is large, the  average  is  more
likely  to  be  correct,  but  it  is still a very unpredictable average
value.  If IBM adds mount count to the type 74 record, ANALMNTS would be
and exact measure of tape mount time.                                   
                                                                        
                                                                        
AVGMNTTM was validated with the MXG ASMONTAP tape mount monitor program,
which creates a record for each mount event, tracking both the  time  of
mount, its duration, and the JOB READTIME causing that tape mount.      
                                                                        
  Unfortunately,  while  the  ASMONTAP  source  code  is  on  the MXG   
  library, it has not yet been modified to  execute  outside  of  its   
  home,  where  it exploits other local modifications at that site to   
  capture the JOB and READTIME information.                             
                                                                        
If you have TELEGENIX devices (a display unit on each  tape  drive  that
displays  VOLSER, etc.) it puts "RESET cuu" messages (one per SYSTEM) on
SYSLOG at the precise time of the DEVICE  READY  event.   It  should  be
possible  to  match the correct RESET with the MOUNT message and measure
tape time from tape mount time from SYSLOG until ASMONTAP  is  modified.
(By  the  way, these multiple RESET messages, issued at one instant, but
time stamped on each SYSTEM, show the  time  of  day  clock  differences
between CPUs!)                                                          
                                                                        
One  analysis of tape mounts compared RMF, ASMONTAP, and SYSLOG for 3480
autoloaded scratch tapes.  The minimum  mount  time  was  20-30  seconds
(mount  to  ready)  just for the autoload mechanical operations, with no
additional human delay.  Furthermore, there were frequent  mounts  which
recorded  an additional 20-30 seconds elapsed time after READY until the
IEC705 event (DISP=NEW  tape  label  verification)  was  timestamped  on
SYSLOG.   This  is  an  additional delay time to the job that can not be
measured in mount duration because the mount has already been satisfied.
                                                                        
4. Technical Notes: VM                                                  
                                                                        
5. Technical Notes: SAS                                                 
                                                                        
a. Correction to Newsletter ELEVEN elimination of tape mounts.          
                                                                        
The algorighm in MONTHBLD and on page 10 of Newsletter ELEVEN which uses
the FILE MONTH statement requires the additon of DCB=TAPETEMP:          
                                                                        
    FILE MONTH MOD CLOSE=LEAVE DCB=TAPETEMP;                            
                                                                        
Without it, the tape is build using SAS' default DCB attributes for tape
data sets, which is RECFM=FB,LRECL=80,BLKSIZE=6400.                     
                                                                        
b. SAS ZAPS for 3380-K DASD Devices.                                    
                                                                        
   Z516.2120 Allows 3380-K's to contain SAS data sets with over 32000   
             tracks. (This was never possible before 3380-K's so it     
             is required only if you want to create a very large SAS    
             data set.) Note that this zap is a very big one and is     
             to be on the SAS 5.18 maintenance release and thus it is   
             recommended that you wait until then.                      
                                                                        
   Z516.4669 Makes PROC CONTENTS aware of 3380-K's. See above.