Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2016-10-09.) I have to admit to being a bit of a wannabe when it comes to automation. Certainly most of my career has been built on using and building tools – and you’d have to pry them out of my luke-warm retired hands. 🙂 But when it comes to automation in my personalContinue reading “Automatic For The Peep-Hole”

(Originally posted 2016-10-06.) I’ve been musing on counting transactions for a customer recently. I’d like to share some of that thinking with you. This post is about RMF SMF Type 72 data, rather than middleware-specific stuff. That’s because it’s Generic – applicable to multiple transaction managers. Much lighter weight – so every customer can collect,Continue reading “Transaction Counts”

(Originally posted 2016-09-10.) Getting back “in the studio” was really nice. And we never had any doubt we’d keep recording – so the title is very tongue in cheek. Below are the show notes. The series is here. Episode 7 is here. Episode 7 “We Were On A Break” Show Notes Here are the showContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 7 “We Were On A Break””

(Originally posted 2016-09-03.) I know of no customer who uses the full capacity of a zEC12, let alone a z13? 1 So why do we make them bigger each time? I should state this post is not in support of any product announcement; It’s just scratching an itch of mine. I think it’s an interestingContinue reading “Why Do We Keep Building Bigger Machines?”

(Originally posted 2016-08-27.) When looking at a batch job1 I like to see how the data flows through the various steps. The first step – some 23 years ago 🙂 – was to look at the Life Of A Data Set (“LOADS” for short).2 With LOADS – for VSAM and non-VSAM data sets – youContinue reading “A Record Of Sorts”

(Originally posted 2016-08-21.) The title of this post is a Physics reference but this is not about Physics.1 A customer asked me the question “why am I not getting balanced CPU Utilisation between the various machines”? I’m responding without data at this stage so I’m going to be even more “hand wavy” than usual –Continue reading “Fearful Symmetry”

(Originally posted 2016-08-14.) This is a post where I have, yet again, to be careful to obfuscate the customer’s situation; I’ve no wish to embarrass them. So you’ll forgive me if there are no numbers. But there is a lesson worth sharing here. So I’m going for it… It’s about DB2 and Workload Manager.1 IContinue reading “Corroboration Not Correlation”

(Originally posted 2016-08-11.) (Reposted without change as I accidentally deleted it while getting rid of a SPAM comment.) Episode 5 had a different feel for me. It was our first “trip report” episode, and it felt much looser for that. In fact the sound effects between topics could’ve been elided but for now I’m stickingContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 5 “The Long Road Back From Munich””

(Originally posted 2016-07-11.) Episode 6 was a complete surprise to us! Marna had thought I was on vacation a week earlier than I was. To be fair, I expected to be with a customer in Australia that week. But then the workshop got pushed back and so this week came free [1] So we wentContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 6 “Expect The Unexpected””

(Originally posted 2016-07-02.) Or “The Man Who Knew Too Little”? This post is occasioned by a number of things coming together, the most recent of which is reviewing a very nice upcoming RedPaper. The gist is this: You’re responsible for managing Performance, Capacity and (to some extent) mainframe costs. But you can’t rely on anybodyContinue reading “What Do I Know?”