Flexible Drilldowns for z/OS Performance Analysts

One of the greatest boosts to learning and effectiveness for performance and capacity analysts is provided by a flexible drilldown capability. This allows alternative analytical paths to be pursued based on the current display.

Though a less experienced analyst may not know precisely what to look for, he or she can begin exploring with minimal effort. And the cost of going down the “wrong path” is reduced to the time it takes to do a few clicks. This is particularly helpful for newer analysts who have not had years to develop “I’ve seen this dozens of times before so I know where to look before I even start” skills.

Everyone has some kind of CPU reporting capability, but the effectiveness of any analysis of CPU consumption for the capacity planner or performance analyst is greatly enhanced by a flexible drilldown capability.

From this starting point of CPU consumption by CEC in units of MSUs, the work consuming CPU on any CEC can be analyzed in whatever manner best suits the analyst’s purposes, through drill downs by System, Workload, WLM Importance level, Service Class, Report Class, and Address Space (not shown here). Or if the analysis warrants, rather than starting by CEC, it could begin from enterprise views by Workload, WLM Importance level, Service Class, or Report Class.