EasySMF Report: Service Class Detail
The Workload Manager - Service Class Detail report has several charts which show information about a particular service class. It shows:
- Service class and goal information
- Performance index
- Velocity
- Service consumed
- Delays
- Response time distribution during the time period, for response time goals
One of the difficulties managing Workload Manager is that the various measurements are interdependent - it is difficult to draw any conclusions from performance index, velocity etc. in isolation.
This report shows various charts together so that the information on one chart can help to interpret the information on other charts. For example, on the chart below, there is a period where the performance index spikes and the work is not meeting its goals. However, we can see that the Service Consumed and Delays are both very low during this period, suggesting that there is actually very little work in this service class at the time. What is probably happening is that when the work is being dispatched it finishes so quickly that we don’t get many “using” samples for the velocity calculation. The Service Consumed and Delay charts tell us that the high performance index during this period is not a problem.
Service Class Detail Report
Like all the time based charts, you can click and drag on the chart to zoom in on a time period.
Introducing EasySMF
EasySMF is a new program to allow you to view z/OS SMF data on a PC. It is a standalone program - no additional software is required to process the SMF data. Reports are interactive, so you can click to sort and drill through reports, and drag to zoom in on time periods in charts.
I have worked as a MVS-OS/390-z/OS Systems Programmer in 3 different sites, and none had an easy way for sysprogs to use SMF data.
The first site had MXG, but it was used by the performance and capacity planning group rather than the systems programmers. In reality there was no reason we couldn’t use it, but the learning curve was pretty steep if you didn’t know SAS.
The second site was small and didn’t have the budget for SAS. We did use various free assembler programs to produce some reports, but they were fairly limited.
The third site was larger, and again had a dedicated performance and planning team. They didn’t use MXG, but had a different set of tools. It was difficult to arrange access to the tools (although we had access to the SMF data) and again the learning curve was steep.
The common factor was that getting information from SMF was difficult. If you were investigating a problem, working out how to get the information you needed could be half the battle.
I set out to create a tool to make SMF data more useful. I wanted to be able to use the data, without having to think about how to extract it. I wanted to be able to look at different types of data for the same time, and easily change the time period without re-running batch jobs.
EasySMF Screenshot
Some of the main aims with EasySMF were:
- Make useful information recorded in SMF data accessible, without programming. SMF information should be usable by any groups that would find it useful - e.g. Security Administrators and Operations as well as Systems Programmers, Capacity Planners and Performance Analysts
- Create reports combining information from different SMF record types and subtypes where it will create more useful reports.
- Take advantage of PC features for easy navigation through the data. For example, you can click or drag on many charts drill through or zoom in, and easily switch between different reports to view different information from the same time period.
- Price the product in line with typical PC software, rather than mainframe software.
EasySMF is now available for beta testing. Please download it and try it out - you can judge yourself whether I have been successful. Additional reports will be added over time, and I would like to hear about the reports you most want to see.
In future posts I will describe a few of the more interesting existing reports.
TimeSprite integration with FogBugz time tracking
TimeSprite can now exchange time tracking data with FogBugz Version 6 from Fog Creek Software. It uses the FogBugz API to send and receive information about cases and recorded time.
The TimeSprite FogBugz integration allows you to:
- Download time data from FogBugz and view it using the TimeSprite timesheet, journal and percentage time views
- Automatically track your actual working time, instead of scheduled working time
- Pick your current task using a system tray application instead of a web browser
- Work offline, and upload your time tracking data to FogBugz later
TimeSprite makes the FogBugz time tracking significantly easier to use.
There are several ways you can use TimeSprite with FogBugz:
- Track time in FogBugz and view the data with TimeSprite
- Track time with TimeSprite, and upload the data to FogBugz
- Track time in both, and combine the FogBugz data with TimeSprite’s automatic tracking to see details of what you were working on.
Tracking time with FogBugz
If you use FogBugz for your time tracking, TimeSprite can download the information for easier viewing. Once you have entered the connection information, simply click the arrow to download times for the current interval.
Tracking time with TimeSprite
TimeSprite can send its time tracking information to FogBugz. You can either select your current case in the TimeSprite monitor using the system tray icon, or assign time to cases later in the TimeSprite Journal.
Selecting the current case from the system tray
Assigning a case number to time in the journal
TimeSprite tracks when you are actually using your computer, so you can get more accurate time records.
When you want to send the data to FogBugz, click the arrow to upload the data. Intervals which have not yet been sent will be uploaded.
Tracking time in both
You can track your time in FogBugz, and combine the records with TimeSprite’s automatic tracking. Let TimeSprite automatically track what you are working on, and periodically download the data from FogBugz. You can then see the FogBugz case information alongside TimeSprite’s record of which applications and documents you were using.
Conflicts
Time tracking information from FogBugz will override the FogBugz case information in TimeSprite. TimeSprite will not upload changes if there are already time records for the same interval. However, it will keep trying. To get rid of the error message when you upload the data either:
- Download the FogBugz data for that interval, which will override TimeSprite’s information, or
- Log into FogBugz and delete the existing intervals for that time, so TimeSprite can upload its information.
Setting up the connection
To enable TimeSprite’s FogBugz integration, go to the TimeSprite settings page (Edit->Settings).
Enter the URL of your FogBugz system, typically something like https://your.fogbugz.com or http://server.example.com/fogbugz, your user name, and password.
TimeSprite Website
Download
Download TimeSprite from:
http://www.timesprite.com/TimeSpriteSetup.exe
How to create timesheets automatically with TimeSprite
This is a mini-tutorial about creating time sheets from the information automatically recorded by TimeSprite.
Once per minute TimeSprite records the title of the active window on your computer. When you view the reports, it creates groups of similar titles to make the data more manageable.
To create a timesheet, you need to create your own groups and assign the automatic groups or individual window titles to them. This is because the automatic groups are unlikely to correspond with what you actually want in your time sheet. The automatic groups are created from the recorded window titles, so they will be things like “Microsoft Word - Specifications.doc”. To create a timesheet, you need to assign these to timesheet entries.
TimeSprite Version 2 Release
Very few problems have been reported during the beta testing, so it is time to officially release TimeSprite version 2.
TimeSprite Version 2 is a free upgrade for those who purchased version 1.
Changes and new functions:
- Use the process name to group windows that don’t have enough information to group by title. This avoids having many short entries for “Save File” dialogs etc.
- Add journal and weekly and monthly timesheet views of data.
- Add wildcard support when grouping by title.
- Records can be grouped by time, overriding other grouping for that specific time.
- Add export and import functions so data from 2 PCs can be merged.
- Add support for adding notes in journal.
- Add copy to clipboard so you can copy and paste to applications like Excel.
- Add reminder function to notify you after you have spent a certain amount of time on an activity.
- Automatically minimize the monitor after startup if it was minimized when shut down.
- The database has been modified for improved performance and smaller size.
- The default data retention period has been extended from 45 to 9999 days.
- Improve the search for common parts of window titles for grouping.
- Add a reminder when the monitor is paused.
- Evaluation period extended to 30 days.
- Use the same list for grouping and the TimeSprite Monitor activity selection. Most people thought these were the same list anyway, and were confused when they were different.
- Fix occasional database errors, and improve the diagnostic information gathered when an error occurs.
- Improve and fix bugs in the date and time selection.
TimeSprite 2.0 Beta
I am very relieved to finally have the TimeSprite 2.0 beta available. A number of people have been asking when TimeSprite was going to be updated, and I really didn’t think it was going to be this long.
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Using Inno Setup with the .NET Framework
This article describes the script used to automatically download and install the Microsoft .NET Framework during the TimeSprite installation. Developers of .NET applications may find this information useful for their own applications.
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