Performance alerts

Performance alert reporting provides you with the ability to monitor and report adverse transaction performance conditions based on predefined thresholds. It complements statistics alert reporting to support your requirements for performance compliance and problem detection.

CICS® CMF data is measured against user-defined performance thresholds and only transactions that fail alert thresholds are reported or flagged in the report. The Performance List and Summary reports and extracts compare nominated fields in each transaction's resource values against those defined in the alert definition. Only matching transactions are compared against the corresponding threshold values and the non-compliant transactions are reported.

Existing Reports Sets can be used to satisfy both your standard and alert reporting needs, including performance extracts into CSV data sets or loaded into DB2® tables.

Performance alert definitions are stored in the Repository. A performance alert definition is stored as two related parts, a template and a set of threshold values based on the template.

Using a Report Form to format your report is optional. This is because you can also use the performance alert template to format your report.

The performance alert definition allows you to define resource fields and values for transaction filtering. Transaction filtering associates specific threshold values with specific transactions. The resource fields are type character identification fields such as TRAN, APPLID, and USERID, or Application Group. You can specify from 1 to 3 resource fields with a value for each.

Each set of resource fields has an associated set of data fields with severity threshold values. This means that in a single alert definition, you can define different severity threshold values for different resources. This is shown in the following example.

Figure 1. Example: Performance alert definition
                             Info      Warning   Critical 
  TRAN     APPLID   USERID   RESPONSE  RESPONSE  RESPONSE 
/                            TIME      TIME      TIME     
  HR*_____ PROD*___ ________ _________ *1.1_____ _________
_ HRP*     PRODHR   PER*     <0.7      <1.0      >=1.0    
_ HRP*     PRODHR   SYD*     <0.1      <0.5      >=0.5    
_ HRP*     PRODHR   NY*      <0.4      <0.7      >=0.7    

This example shows three different resources each with a different set of threshold values. It also shows an adjustment value for the Response Time Warning column. This is a shortcut method of applying global adjustment to threshold values without editing every value in the definition. The adjustment value is applied to every threshold value in the column.

The structure of the alert definition is based on a template which defines the resource fields, data fields, severities and layout of the alert definition. The template provides flexibility to construct and modify the alert definition to include the resource and data fields you want. The layout of the template is particularly important as it acts as a pseudo Report Form when no Form is specified in the report, and therefore the field order determines the report layout.

A performance alert definition has the following attributes:

To create a performance alert report or extract, follow these steps:

  1. Define a performance alert definition.

    To begin:

    1. Select option 8 Resource Definitions from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
    2. Select option 3 Performance Alerts from the Resource Definitions Menu.

    For more information, see Defining performance alerts.

  2. Use the performance alert definition to create a Performance List or Summary report.

    To create a Performance List or Summary alert report:

    1. Select option 2 Report Sets from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
    2. Select or create a report set.
    3. Expand the Performance Reports category, and then select List or Summary.

    For more information, see Performance List report or Performance Summary report.

  3. Use the performance alert definition to create a Performance List or Summary extract.

    To create a Performance List or Summary alert extract file:

    1. Select option 2 Report Sets from the CICS PA Primary Option Menu.
    2. Select or create a report set.
    3. Expand the Extracts category, and then select Performance.

    For more information, see Performance Data extract.

For examples of performance alert reports and extracts, see Performance alert examples.


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Timestamp icon Last updated: Thursday, 7 November 2013


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