In this issue, I’ll cover the following:
1. Some Excitement in Our Life
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter, 1998, No. 5 Summary
3. CPU Chart Mailed
1. Some Excitement in Our Life
First of all, we’ll be moving to different offices here in Sarasota sometime in January. As soon as we finalize our schedule, address, and new phone numbers, we’ll let you know. Our email ids will remain the same, as will our 800-number (800-553-4562).
But an even more disturbing event has taken place. Around noon on Monday Tom and I were at home when an armed burglar forced his way into our home. After sticking me in the trunk of our Lexus, he took our cash and jewelry and tied Tom up. He then told Tom that because we’d seen his face, he was going to have to kill us! When he left the room to look for more goodies, Tom escaped, ran to the neighbors, and called the police. So the robber took off with my BMW. It was recovered a short distance away with only minor damage. Our damage is a little less minor. Tom has a torn rotator cuff that will take several months to mend. (He had to leap the fence and run through some brambles.) He’s my hero! We are dealing with the stress pretty well. We may move our personal residence, however, since the person is still at large. Because of all this, the last issue of 1998 will probably not be mailed until the latter part of January 1999. Our responses to email might be a bit slow also. We hope you understand.
2. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter, 1998, No. 5 Summary
The 1998, No. 5 TUNING Letter issue was mailed to subscribers on November 11, 1998. The Management Issues section below is a summary of the issue we prepare for management. We hope it gives you a sense of the scope and contents of the issue. Cheryl Watson’s TUNING Letter is a print-only product published six times a year, with an average of forty pages per issue. See our Web page for details!
Update on LE
Our last issue on Language Environment (LE) received a lot of attention! Most installations were just starting to get interested in LE, and the timing couldn’t have been better. Other sites had already completed their migration, but thought it was important for us to get the word out, and they were still able to find useful suggestions in the issue. But some installations only saw my statement that LE could take 5-30% overhead and got quite concerned. I should have pointed out more strongly that most sites were able to reduce that overhead to between 0% and 5% with tuning and applying APARs. That was the real reason for that TUNING Letter issue – to provide a list of tuning tips and applicable APARs.
Software Pricing
IBM’s recent announcement of the two updated software pricing models that will replace nine current models (such as GMLC, OTLC, DSLO, and MOSP) is significant because it means a change in pricing for many installations. The majority of installations will see a net decrease in IBM software costs, although some sites could see an increase. It’s quite important to be on OS/390 to get the most benefit out of the new models. You will have eighteen months to select which pricing model(s) you want to use instead of your current licensing. Don’t wait until the last moment to do your analysis. There are thousands of dollars a month at stake.
SHARE Trip Report
My report from SHARE includes a description of the OS/390 R6 change in WLM that will prevent discretionary work from being shut out while other work is overachieving its goals; MCI’s experience with migrating their 36 LPARs, over 900 performance groups, and 12581 MIPS to goal mode (if they can do it, anybody can!); some good feedback on experiences with ServerPac in OS/390 R5; important JES3 and JES2 APARs; tips on tuning ISPF; and additional tuning tips throughout the report.
In Other News
Our S/390 News gives some recommendations on using started tasks in OS/390, an SDSF tuning experience, an explanation of how MDF is reported in RMF and CMF, a neat addition to WLM in OS/390 R6 (you can now put comments in the classification rules!), an informational APAR for DB2, a DB2 APAR for improving data sharing recovery, a tutorial on the changes in names that IBM is giving its products (e.g. OpenEdition is now UNIX), and the latest WSC Flashes, including an important one with APARs for base sysplex that could prevent a sysplex-wide IPL.
I also cover the overhead of DB2 traces; Bob Archambeault explains how to reduce CICS shutdown hangs; you’ll find a new use for WLM resource group capping for performance modeling by Bob Downer of Duke Energy; and a new online Coupling Facility monitor is now available. New processors are discussed in the two Cheryl’s Lists.
3. CPU Chart Mailed
Cheryl Watson’s CPU Chart was mailed on November 11, 1998. It contains the following changes:
- The IBM G5 series (9672-Rx6) announced May 7, 1998 has been updated with processor groups, SU/Sec, and our MIPS by workload. New turbo models that were provided in late October have been added.
- The HDS Pilot 98 series announced May 14, 1998 has also been updated and includes new processors announced on September 21, 1998. New Skyline models have been added.
- Amdahl’s 40 new models of their latest Millennium 800 series (announced on October 12, 1988) have been added. A new Amdahl GS722 model was also added.
- Some processor groups were changed or added in the CPU Chart and are noted by a revision mark
- At the time that IBM re-calculated their LSPRs using an OS/390 software base, most of our customers were still running MVS. Therefore, for the older machines, we kept our estimated MIPS that were based on the older LSPRs. Now that most of our customers are on OS/390 (or will be very soon), we have changed those estimates to correspond to IBM’s OS/390-based LSPRs. The result is a slight change (typically an increase) in estimated MIPS. If you are still running MVS, you may prefer to use our MAY 1998 Chart instead of this one.
- Rather than use IBM’s LSPR values for the basis of our estimated MIPS by workload, we are now using a combination of LSPR values, the vendor’s claims, and customer feedback. A comparison of workload MIPS should now give you a closer estimate to what you might expect to see for your workloads.
- We’ve added a new column, STIDP (store processor id), to show the actual processor model that appears in the machine and in your SMF type 70 data. The values for the older machines (over 8 years) have not been confirmed.
- The MIPS Basis column has been replaced with a column for HDS models to indicate the comparable IBM model (according to HDS).
- Many more models have been updated to include our estimated MIPS by workload.
- All in all, there’s information on 667 processors! If you don’t subscribe to the TUNING Letter, you can still order one. The cost is just $80 and includes any past issue of the TUNING Letter as well.
That’s all for now. Stay tuned!