Terms used in RMF reports

It might help to relate some of the terms used in an RMF™ activity report to the more familiar CICS® terms. For example, some of terms in the RMF report can be equated with CEMT INQUIRE TASK terms.

These explanations are given for two main sections of the reports:

The response time breakdown in percentage section

The "Response time breakdown in percentage" section of the RMF report contains the following headings:

ACTIVE
The percentage of response time accounted for by tasks currently executing in the region--tasks shown as Running by the CEMT INQUIRE TASK command.
READY
The percentage of response time accounted for by tasks that are not currently executing but are ready to be dispatched--tasks shown as Dispatchable by the CEMT INQUIRE TASK command.
IDLE
The percentage of response time accounted for by a number of instances or types of CICS tasks:

A CEMT INQUIRE TASK command would show any of these user tasks as Suspended, as are the CICS system tasks.

WAITING FOR
The percentage of response time accounted for by tasks that are not currently executing and are not ready to be dispatched--shown as Suspended by the CEMT INQUIRE TASK command.

The WAITING FOR main heading is further broken down into a number of subsidiary headings. Where applicable, for waits other than those described for the IDLE condition described above, CICS interprets the cause of the wait, and records the ‘waiting for’ reason in the WLM performance block.

The waiting-for terms used in the RMF report equate to the WLM_WAIT_TYPE parameter on the SUSPEND, WAIT_OLDC, WAIT_OLDW, and WAIT_MVS calls used by the dispatcher, and the SUSPEND and WAIT_MVS calls used in the CICS XPI. These are shown as follows (with the CICS WLM_WAIT_TYPE term, where different from RMF, in parenthesis):

Term
Description
LOCK
Waiting on a lock. For example, waiting for:
I/O (IO)
Waiting for an I/O request or I/O related request to complete. For example:
CONV
Waiting on a conversation between work manager subsystems. This information is further analyzed under the SWITCHED TIME heading.
DIST
Not used by CICS.
LOCAL (SESS_LOCALMVS)
Waiting on the establishment of a session with another CICS region in the same MVS™ image in the sysplex.
SYSPL (SESS_SYSPLEX)
Waiting on establishment of a session with another CICS region in a different MVS image in the sysplex.
REMOT (SESS_NETWORK)
Waiting on the establishment of an ISC session with another CICS region (which may, or may not, be in the same MVS image).
TIMER
Waiting for a timer event or an interval control event to complete. For example, an application has issued an EXEC CICS DELAY or EXEC CICS WAIT EVENT command which has yet to complete.
PROD (OTHER_PRODUCT)
Waiting on another product to complete its function; for example, when the work request has been passed to a DB2® or DBCTL subsystem.
MISC
Waiting on a resource that does not fall into any of the other categories.

The state section

The state section covers the time that transactions are "switched" to another CICS region:

SWITCHED TIME
The percentage of response time accounted for by tasks in a TOR that are waiting on a conversation across an intersystem communication link (MRO or ISC). This information provides a further breakdown of the response time shown under the CONV heading.

The SWITCHED TIME heading is further broken down into a number of subsidiary headings, and covers those transactions that are waiting on a conversation. These are explained as follows:

LOCAL
The work request has been switched, across an MRO link, to another CICS region in same MVS image.
SYSPL
The work request has been switched, across an XCF/MRO link, to another CICS region in another MVS image in the sysplex.
REMOT
The work request has been switched, across an ISC link, to another CICS region (which may, or may not, be in the same MVS image).

Related concepts
Using CICS monitoring information with RMF
Interpreting the RMF workload activity data
An explanation of the difference between a DFHSTUP transaction report and an RMF workload report
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