Author Archives: Martin Packer

(Originally posted 2016-05-07.) You probably wonder why I post to my blog echoing our podcast episodes. There are two reasons: Yes, it alerts more people to our podcast series. Well duh. 🙂 It gives me a chance to inject something more personal about the episode. So in the latter spirit I’d say the highlight forContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 3 “Getting Better””

(Originally posted 2016-05-02.) Some of my blog posts revolve around a single SMF field, or maybe a couple. This post is one of those. If I look at my customers’ mainframe estates [1], especially the DB2 portion of them, they’re getting more complex by the year. In particular, quite a few customers are in theContinue reading “DB2 DDF Transaction Rates Without Tears”

(Originally posted 2016-05-01.) In Episode 1 of MPT Podcast we discussed Markdown and Marna asked me if it could be run on z/OS. My answer was “you could try a Python Markdown processor via Jython”.[1] Then, on IBM-MAIN, Dave Griffiths suggested using one of the Java Markdown processors, instead of Jython. So I got toContinue reading “Java Markdown Processing On z/OS”

(Originally posted 2016-04-30.) I think we were much more relaxed when we put this episode together, and I hope it shows. We’re learning our craft, and I think quite fast. Below are the show notes. The series is here. Episode 2 is here. Episode 2 “Sound Affects” Show Notes Here are the show notes forContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 2 “Sound Affects””

(Originally posted 2016-04-09.) We enjoyed recording Episode 0, learning as we went. And people seem to have enjoyed it. So we recorded another one.   So here are the show notes for Episode 1.   By the way we publish the show notes with the audio.   You can get the series (and it isContinue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 1 “A Luta Continua” (“The Struggle Continues”)”

(Originally posted 2016-03-17.) I’m delighted Marna Walle and I are collaborating on a podcast series. We’re calling it “Mainframe, Performance, Topics Podcast”. You can guess where we got the name from. 🙂 Below are the show notes. The series is here. Episode 0 is here. Episode 0 “Sic Parvis Magna” ( “Greatness From Small Beginnings"Continue reading “Mainframe Performance Topics Podcast Episode 0 “Sic Parvis Magna” (“Greatness From Small Beginnings”)”

(Originally posted 2016-03-08.) Here are are two questions people would like easy answers to: What are the big CPU DB2 jobs accessing this DB2 subsystem? Which job steps access MQ? This post shows you how to answer both these questions without DB2- or MQ-specific instrumentation. The “without DB2- or MQ-specific instrumentation” phrase is important: I’mContinue reading “Batch DB2 And MQ The Easy Way”

(Originally posted 2016-02-21.) One of my new 2016 presentations is called “How To Be A Better Performance Specialist” – though I really could use a snappier title. Here’s the abstract:   I’ve spent 30 years doing Performance and Capacity. You’d think it’d seem stale and repetitive by now. Not a bit of it. It’s stillContinue reading “Oh The Arrogance Of It”

(Originally posted 2016-02-14.) I wish I’d started counting DB2 subsystems before. A recent study saw 43 DB2 subsystems, in 13 Data Sharing groups (and a few in none), across a large number of z/OS systems. And if I try to remember other studies these numbers have been typical of them (but this is not aContinue reading “Suffering Subsystems”

(Originally posted 2016-01-24.) DDF and Batch sound like two opposite ends of the spectrum, don’t they? Well, it turns out they’re not. I said in DDF Counts I might well have more to say about DDF. I was right. I’ve known for a long time that some DDF work can come in from other z/OSContinue reading “DDF Batch”