Version 15.1 User’s Manual

Version 15.1 User’s Manual 

October 2011 

Version 15 User Manual Page 1 Oct 2011

© Copyright Midrange Performance Group Inc. 2011 

MPG is a registered trademark of Midrange Performance Group, Inc. The Performance Navigator name and 

logo are registered trademarks of Midrange Performance Group, Inc. AS/400 and IBM i are trademarks of International 

Business Machines. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. BEST/1 is a registered 

trademark of BMC Software, Inc. 


Table of Contents 

Product Overview & Components………………….………………………………………….……….. 7 

Understanding the Performance Data………………………………………………………………… 8 

Types of Data Used ………..………………………………….……………………………….……... 9 

Performance Data Tab…………………………………………………………………………………… 10 

Installing PN/400 (on the IBM i)……………............................................................................ 11 

Performance Navigator Menu (on the IBM i)……………………………………………………… 19 

PerfNav Work Scheduled Job Entries (on the IBM i)…….………..…………………………….. 20 

PerfNav Work with Customization Options (on the IBM i)……………………..……………….. 22 

PerfNav Status & Information Screen (on the IBM i)…………………….……..……………….. 23 

Understanding the Graph Levels... ................................................................................................... 24 

Graphs Available By Category....................................................................................................... 26 

Average Day Graphs……………………………………………………………………………………. 26 

Selecting An Average Day Date Range....................................................................................... 27 

Current Day Graphs / Selecting a Prior Current Day Member..................................................... 28 

What If Date Range (Selecting the What If Baseline Data)…………………………………………. 27 

Peak Day Graphs……………………………………………………………………………………….. 29 

Selecting A Peak Day Date Range.............................................................................................. 30 

Service Level Graphs…………………………………………………………………………………… 31 

Selecting A Service Level Date & Time Range............................................................................. 32 

Service Level – Configurable Guidelines...................................................................................... 33 

Understanding The Graph Menu………………………………..……………………………………… 35 

Screen Options…………………………………………………………………………………………… 36 

Tool Bar Summary………………………………………………………………………………………. 38 

Zoom In............................................................................................................................. 39 

Zoom Out........................................................................................................................... 40 

Change Scale..................................................................................................................... 41 

Drill Down......................................................................................................................... 42 

Drill Up............................................................................................................................... 42 

Pie Chart………………………………………………………………………………………….. 43 

Previous Graph.................................................................................................................. 42 

Next Graph......................................................................................................................... 43 

Combine with Previous Graph............................................................................................. 44 

Extrapolate......................................................................................................................... 45 

Guidelines......................................................……………………………………………….. 46 

3D Effect. Print, Refresh, Script........................................................................................ 47 

Create Footnotes On Graphs……………………………………………………………………………. 48 

Why Is My Cursor Changing?………………………………………………………………………….. 49 

The X and Y Axis………………………………………………………………………………………… 50 

Trend Lines ..........………………………………………………………………………………………. 52 

Filtering & Deleting Data............................................................................. ………………………. 53 

IBM i Connection ID………………………………………………………………………………... 54 

Data Scope Indicator……………………………………………………………………………………. 55 

Graph ID & Data Window……………………………………………...…………………………….. 56 

Removing Gaps in Data................................................................................................................ 57 

Graph Properties…………………………………………………………………………………………. 58 

Copy Bitmap / New Window……………………………………………………………………………. 59 

PerfNav Email Capability………………………………………………………………………………… 60 



File Menu Options.………………………………………………………………………………………… 61 

SOS Process…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 62 

Edit Menu Options…….…………………………………………………………………………………… 63 

View Menu Options (View IBM information)…………………………………………………….. 65 

View Menu Options (View Series Data)……………………………………………………………….. 66 

View Footnotes……………………………………………………………………………………………. 68 

Graph Menu Option……………………………………………………………………………………… 69 

Reports Menu Options……. …………………………………………………………………………….. 70 

Reports - Spreadsheet Options…………….………………………………………………………….. 71 

Report Examples………………………………………………………………………………………… 72 

Monthly Resource Consumption…………………………………………………………….. 74 

Management Summary……….………………………………………………………….. 75 

Library & Objects & IFS…….…………………………………………………………….. 76 

Library Change Analysis…...…………………………………………………………….. 77 

Library / Object Change Analysis….……………………………………………………….. 78 

Rack Detail Report………………………………………………………………………………. 79 

Understanding The Key Code Process.......................................................................................... 80 

Individual Key Codes…………………………………………………………………………………….. 81 

Creating Report Sets.................................................................................. ………………………. 82 

Emailing Report Sets................................................................................................................... 92 

Report Set Automation............................................................................................................... 94 

Deleting Report Sets.................................................................................................................... 100 

Performance Navigator Groups……………………………………………………………...………. 102 

Creating User Groups........................................................................................................... 103 

Creating Job Groups.............................................................................................................106 

Creating Job Groups (importing Jobs).................................................................................. 108 

Displaying Group graphs & reports...................................................................................... 112 

The Navigator Panel………………………………………………………………………………………...116 

Performance Management ………….......................................................................................................123 

Understanding Trend Analysis ………………………………………………………………………….. 123 

Start / End a Trend Line………………………………………………………………………………….. 125 

Trend Line Options………………………………….. …………………………………………………. 126 

Trend Stats Window………………………………….. …………………………………………………. 127 

Basic Tab………….…………………………………………………………………………….. 127 

Data Projection Window………………………………………………………………………. 129 

Advanced Tab…………………………………………………………………………………… 130 

Before vs. After Analysis Tab (Splitting the Trend Line)……………………………………… 131 

Extrapolation Tab......................……………………………………………………………….. 132 

Joining the Trend Line………………………………………………………………………….. 134 



Problem Determination …………........................................................................................................... 135 

Drilling Down Into The Data ……………………………………………………………………………... 136 

Sorting The Data ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 137 

Graphing The Drilled Down Data ……………………………………………………………………….. 138 

Filtering The Drilled Down Data................................................................. ………………………… 139 

Resetting The Drilled Down Data................................................................………………………… 140 

Viewing Systems Tasks In The Drilled Down Data........................................…………………………141 

Problem Determination Script. (Analyze A Single Interval)..........................………………………… 142 

Problem Determination Script. (Analyze Multiple Intervals).......................………………………… 145 

Capacity Planning ………………………………………………...…………………………………………. 148 

What If ® Options ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 149 

What If Tabs………………………………………………………………………………………………. 150 

What If – Model Selection ………………………………………………………………………………. 151 

What If – Room For Growth ……………………………………………………………………………. 152 

What If – Adjust Workload ……………………………………………………………………………… 153 

Percentages………………...……………………………………………………………… 153 

Time Zone...………………...……………………………………………………………… 154 

What If – Trend Options ………………………………………………………………………………… 155 

Use Automatically Calculated Trends………………………………………………………… 155 

Setting What If Automatic Trends (CPU)..............................……….………………………………… 156 

Setting What If Automatic Trends (CPW)..............................……….………………………………… 157 

What If – Trend Options ………………………………………………………………………………… 

Define Your Own Trends……….………………………………………………………… 158 

What If – Server Consolidation ………………………………………………………………………… 160 

Adding the Same Workload Twice................................................................................................. 162 

What If LPAR……………………………………………………………………………………………… 163 

What If – LPAR / Configure…………………………………………………………………………….. 164 

What If – LPAR / Report ……………………………………………………………………………….. 165 

What If – DASD …………………………………………………………………………………………. 166 

What If - DASD (View IOAs)…………………………………………………………………………… 167 

What If – Jobs …………………………………………………………………………………………... 168 

What If – Saving The Model…………………………………………………………………………... 169 

Performance Navigator Scripts ……………………………...…………………………………………. 170 

Understanding Performance Navigator Scripts……………………………………………………. 170 

Description of The Scripts (Management Summary Menu)……………………………………….. 172 

Description of The Scripts (Analytics Menu)……………………………………………………….. 173 

Customizing The Logo To Your Company Logo…………………………………………………….. 174 

File Run Script Window…………………………………………………………………………………….. 175 

Changing The Default Script Run Date………………………………………………………………….. 175 

Locating / Printing The Script Output (Non LPAR Licenses —Less Than 3 LPARs)……………….. 176 

Changing The Output Directories (Graphs, EXPO, & Report Output)………………………….. 177 

Locating / Printing The Script Output (LPAR Licenses—Greater Than 3 LPARs)………………….. 177 

Management Summary Output…...………………………………………………………………178 

EXPO (Executive Performance Overview) Output…...……………………………………… 179 

Power Analytics Output…...………………...…………………………………………… 180 

Problem Determination Output…...……………………………………………………………… 181 

What If Modeling Output…...……………………………………………………………… 182 



Report Set / Script Automation ……………………………...…………………………………………. 183 

Report Set Automation (Using Windows Scheduled Tasks)………………………………………….. 183 

Understanding The Impact of Changes (Before vs. After Analysis) …………………………. 190 

Before vs. After Types of Analysis……….……………………………………...……………….. 191 

Creating The Before vs., After Parameters (Multiple Periods)…………………...……………….. 192 

Starting The Before vs. After Analysis (Multiple Periods)………………………………………….. 193 

Creating The Before vs., After Parameters (Day vs. Day)...…………………...……………….. 194 

Setting Day vs. Day Specific Intervals……………………………………….…...……………….. 196 

Starting The Before vs. After Analysis (Day vs. Day)…..……………………………………….. 197 

Multiple System Comparisons………………………………………………………………………. 198 

Before vs. After Measuring HA (Role Swap) Environments………….……………………. 199 

Choosing The Before vs. After Systems…………………………………………………………………. 199 

Two Types of Analysis Options……………………………………………………………………………. 202 

Multiple System Before vs. After Historical System Overview Analysis ……………….. 203 

Choosing The Type of Analysis (Historical System Overview)……………………………………….. 204 

System 1 (Before System) Performance Data Selection…………………………………………… 206 

System 2 (After System) Performance Data Selection…………………………………………… 208 

Understanding The Output (Historical System Overview)……………………………………….. 209 

Multiple System Before vs. After Day vs. Day Analysis………………………. ……………….. 212 

System 1 (Before System) Performance Day vs. Day Data Selection …….……………… 213 


Understanding The Output (Day vs. Day)……………………………….…………………….. 217 

Before vs. After Job Analysis Measuring HA (Role Swap) Environments…………………. 220 

Choosing The Before vs. After Systems…………………………………………………………………. 221 

Choosing The Job To Analyze…………………………………………………………………………. 225 

System 1 (Before System) Performance Data Selection …….……………………..……… 228 

System 2 (Before System) Performance Data Selection …………………..……………… 230 

Understanding The Output ……………...……………………………….…………………….. 231 



Understanding The Output (Day vs. Day)……………………………….…………………….. 239 

EXPO (Executive Performance Overview)…………………………………...…………………. 242 

What Is EXPO?……………………….…………………………………………………………………. 242 

EXPO Menu……………...…………………………………………………………………………. 242 

EXPO User Interface …..…………………………………………………………………………. 243 

EXPO Hyperlinks…….. …..…………………………………………………………………………. 244 

EXPO Job Analysis ……..…………………………………………………………………………. 245 

EXPO Trends……….. …..…………………………………………………………………………. 247 

EXPO Library Disk Analysis …..…………………………………………………………………………. 248 

EXPO Automation……. …..…………………………………………………………………………. 250 

EXPO Metric Guidelines…….………………………………………………………………………. 254 

EXPO System Groups…..…….………………………………………………………………………. 255 

Creating / Changing EXPO Output Directories………………………..……………………………. 256 

How to Create EXPO Environments (All Frames / Systems In One Report)…………………….259 

How to Create EXPO Environments (Single Frame / Multiple Cust Reports).…………………. 261 


Product Overview 

Performance Navigator (PerfNav) is a graphical PC Tool for IBM i Performance Management, 

Capacity Planning and Problem Solving, which runs on Windows 95/98/XP/Vista (See Vista note 

below)/NT/2000. Performance Navigator displays the data in either a graphical format or a report/tabular 

format. Hundreds of graphs and reports are available. The graphs provide a host 

of features giving extremely dynamic access to your data. The report format provides additional 

features. Performance Navigator also provides What If modeling/capacity planning capabilities, 

grouping and automated production. 

Performance Navigator displays IBM i reduced performance data and raw performance data. 

The data is accessed via an ODBC connection. The ODBC connections are set up under the 

Edit/Connections menu. By default, PerfNav uses the Client Access ODBC driver to connect to 

the IBM i. However, other ODBC IBM i drivers can be used via the manual connection sub tab 

under the ODBC tab. These will be discussed later. For now, just understand that Performance 

Navigator uses this ODBC connection to retrieve the data. 

In addition to creating an ODBC data source, the 400 components, PN/400, must be installed 

to manage the collection of performance data. PN/400 is IBM i code that automates the collection 

and management of performance data. Easy PN/400 installation steps will be discussed in 

a later section. 

Product Components 

PC Application “Performance Navigator”- Powerful application (written in Pascal) that 

displays the IBM i performance data in either a graphical format or a report/tabular format. 

Upgrades available throughout the year – Check via “Help About” 

PN/400 - IBM i jobs that reside on the AS/400. – A series of jobs that manage the historical 

performance data. Upgrades available throughout the year – Check www.mpginc.com 

Templates - These are the .GpT objects that define the characteristics for each graph. That is, 

these objects interface with the application to and the end result is the graph output. These 

objects reside in the Performance Navigator folder: 

( C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 13) 

Vista Note: Product needs to be installed with 'Compatibility' mode as the Administrator. 


Understanding the Performance Data 

(“Performance Data Big Picture”) 

(1) IBM files consist of the QAPM files These files are for current day graphs 

(2) After PERFNAVDR runs at 12:30 am, the PerfNav historical files are created 

IBM Files 

MPG Files 

Raw Data 

(For PerfNav’s 

Current Day 

Graphs) 

Reduced data 

(For PerfNav’s 

Historical Graphs) 

QAPM 

QAPMSYSL (CPU) 

QAPMDISK (Disk) 

QAPMPOOL (Memory) 

etc 

MPGSHF 

MPGPOOL 

MPGINT 

MPGDISK 


Understanding the Performance Data (cont) 

Two Types of Data Are Used 

Raw Data 

The raw data is the normal performance data that is collected by the built-in IBM i performance 

monitor. Performance Navigator supports both Collection Services introduced in V4R4 and 

QPFRMON in prior releases. Although this raw data can be collected into any library, it is normally 

found in the monitor’s default library, QPFRDATA, or QMPGDATA. Performance Navigator 

uses this data as input to its data reduction process and in the “Current Day” graphs used 

for problem determination. 

Reduced Data 

This is the data that is for PerfNav’s Historical graphs. The library MPGLIB on the IBM i contains 

reduced performance data. The data is a subset of the data collected by the IBM i Performance 

Monitor. It contains up to 3 years of summarized data and 365 days of interval data (15- 

minutes by default) in approximately 75-100MB per year. The summarized data maintains data 

for two workload shifts. First shift is by default 8:00am to 5:30pm with the second shift 

5:31pm to 7:59am. These shifts are used to track daytime vs. nighttime workload trends and 

are intended to match the predominantly interactive first shift and the predominantly batch second 

shift. Although these values can be changed, it will affect the historical trending. This reduced 

data gives Performance Navigator quick and easy access to produce its graphs and reports. 

The Performance Monitor does not create reduced data. The Performance Tools do not 

use reduced data. The reduced data in MPGLIB is updated each night by a data reduction job. 

This data is created if the Performance Monitor runs each day and if the data reduction job 

runs each night. The collection of reduced data is initiated by installing PN/400. 

Note: If PM/400 has or is running on your system, PN/400 will copy the PM/400 data into MPGLIB on the 

first execution of the data reduction program. The PM/400 library contains 90 days of historical performance 

data. Although not as detailed as PN/400, the data is very useful for trending. 

Collecting the Performance Data 

One of the main advantages of PerfNav is the automation of the collection and management of 

IBM i performance data. Performance Navigator places a job on the job scheduler that uses an 

API to start the management central collection service starting in V4R4 or starts QPFRMON in 

prior releases. The performance monitor is run 24-hours per day, 365 days per year. Each 

night a data reduction job runs that analyzes the data and purges older raw performance data. 

By default, PerfNav keeps 4 days of raw data for use in problem determination. This automatic 

deletion process keeps the raw performance data library at a reasonable size. Raw performance 

data consumes about 30-50 MB per day. If disk space is not an issue, users can keep as 

many days of raw data as needed. A set of summarized performance data is retained for longterm 

trend analysis. This summarized data is the reduced data. PN/400 jobs, by default, are 

run using the OS/400 Job Scheduler. Any other job scheduler may be used. 

See next page to see how Performance Navigator selects the data to graph 


Understanding the Performance Data (cont) 

Performance Data Tab - Selecting The Data Within Performance Navigator 

1) First, double click on the IBM identifier window: 

Double Click here 

2) The “Performance Data” window opens. 

There are two tabs: (1) Historical/Reduced; 

(2) Current Day/ Collection Services Data: 

Historical/ Reduced: 

- Used to look at MPG performance data files 

- Customers always use library MPGLIB 

- Business Partners use this to select desired 

customer data 

Current Day / Collection Services Data: 

- Used to look at IBM performance data files 

- Used to select “previous” collection services 

members 


Installing PN400 

This section is the first step to installing the required IBM i (AS/400) code on your systems. It 

is also the same process used to update this code from time to time. At a minimum, a new release 

of OS/400 requires an update. The support for new releases are usually provided a 

month before general availability of the release. Upon installing PN for the first time on any 

PC, a message box will ask you if you would like to install PN/400. This needs to be done once 

or twice a year to support new features and releases. The Window below appears when selecting 

this option. 

This tab describes the steps to install the required IBM i code. 

Explains the installation 

process. Simply follow 

the 5 easy steps. 


Installing PN400 (cont) 

Now we must acquire the latest version of the PN500 save file. If you have already acquired the 

latest version and need to install on other IBM i, just click the AUTOMATIC SEARCH button. 

This function searches the C: drive only. You must also be careful when installing updates that 

this option doesn’t find the old release. See below: 

Press this button to acquire the 

latest version of PN400. A 

Windows Save As Window will appear. 

Select the directory and click 

save. 

By clicking on this Tab, the 

CRTSAVF command is place on the 

Windows PC clipboard. Just go to a 

5250 command line and click 

Paste and Enter 



Step3 will FTP the Save File from the PC to the Save File on the IBM i 

Enter either the system name or IP 

address, user ID and password and 

click the FTP button. The IP address 

is the best option. Note: 

The FTP server must be started on 

the IBM i . 

The RSTLIB command is placed on 

the Windows clipboard. On the 

5250 command line, just click 

Paste and Enter.—see next page... 



The library MPGLIBDST is PN400 distribution library. During the next step, MPGLIB will be 

created or updated with objects from the distribution library. 

Upon pasting the restore command, 

press ENTER. The restore 

will begin. 

The restore was successful. 

Note: The number of objects will 

vary depending on release. 



Next, we call the installation program. – Press Tab 5 in PerfNav, then paste the final command 

from the clipboard. 

Selecting this tab places the Call 

command on the Windows PC clipboard. 

Just click Paste and enter 

on the 5250 command line. 

Upon pasting the call 

command, press ENTER. 

The install program will 

begin to run.. 



At this point, you will see numerous “Copying member…” and “Building access path…” messages. 

Be patient. The installation process should take about one or two minutes (depending 

on the workload on your system). The first screen that appears is the Config Performance 

Navigator screen 

All the parameters have default 

values. In most cases these values 

are correct so you can just hit enter. 

Explanations of the parms are 

below. 

See next page for details 



Config Performance Navigator Parameter (CFGPERFNAV) 

Performance data library – Raw Performance Data Library Name 

The first time the installation program runs, it searches the systems for the library with the 

most current performance data. This is usually QMPGLIB or QPFRDATA. This is (or will be) the 

library in which the IBM i Collection Services will place performance data. 

Purge performance data – *yes or *no (default *yes) 

This parm controls whither PN400 purges the raw performance data or not. The default *YES 

causes the PN400 data reduction job (see below) to purge the raw (QAMP) based on the number 

of purge days (next parm) 

Purge days – Number of Raw Performance data to keep (default 4) 

The number of days to keep raw performance data. The default is 4 days. This is a space and 

problem determination issue. Raw performance data will use 20-40 MB per day. However, the 

problem determination part of Performance Navigator uses raw performance data. Assuming 

disk space is not an issue, you should keep as many days as usually needed in a problem determination 

mode. 

Schedule Data Reduction Job - *yes or *no (default *yes) 

This parm should always be *YES. If you want to use another job scheduler, just copy the job 

enter from the OS/400 job scheduler after installation and then delete the entry. 

Job Queue / Library – Job Queue for PN400 batch jobs (default QBATCH) 

The default job queue used to submit PN400 jobs is QBATCH. If another job queue is preferred, 

just enter the job queue name. 

Schedule Performance Monitor - *yes or *no – (default *yes) 

This will place a job on the OS/400 job scheduler that will check every two hours if the OS/400 

collection service is running. If not, it will issue a Management Central API to start the Collection 

Services. 

Copy Reduced Data *now or *nextdr (default depends) 

This option determines when PM400 historical data will be copied to MPGLIB. PM400 keeps 90 

days of historical data on the system. *now will copy the PM400 data during the installation 

process. *nextdr will copy the PM400 data during the next time the data reduction program 

runs. The default is *now if the number of performance data members is 6 or less. If there 

are more that 6 performance data members, the default is *nextdr. 

PerfNavIFS—IFS Information Collection Process 

This option determines whether one wants to start collecting IFS data 



The installation continues for 15-30 seconds and then “Work with Job Scheduled Entries” screen 

appears: 

Performance Navigator/400 jobs 

can be changed when this screen 

appears. These jobs will be discussed 

in detail in the next section 

– IBM i Performance Navigator 

Menu 

The last step is the Work With Contact Information Screen (Not shown). Verify the information 

and press enter. This finishes the installation of PN/400. You will receive a completion message 

like below. 

Success! 

PN/400 Installed 

= 


IBM i Performance Navigator Menu 

To look at the IBM i PN/400 status menu, Enter GO MPGLIB/PERFNAV. See below: 

PN/400 Menu is displayed 

Note: Options 1—3 are for MPG application 

development 

Performance Navigator Menu 

This menu is used to check various components of the Performance Navigator environment 

on the IBM i . 


IBM i Performance Navigator Menu (cont) 

PerfNav Menu - (4) Contact Information 

PerfNav Menu – (5) PerfNav Scheduled Jobs 

Work Scheduled Job Entries 

See next page for job details... 



Description of Jobs: 

PERFNAVDR - Data Reduction 

This job reads performance data (output from the performance monitor) and writes a summarized 

(reduced) set of data into files in MPGLIB. The files in MPGLIB are used by Performance 

Navigator to draw graphs. 

Note: This job also deletes the raw performance data that is collected via collection services (See “Purge Days” on the next page) 

PERFNAVDS – DiSk Collection 

This job does a DSPOBJD *ALLUSR/*ALL *ALL OUTPUT(*OUTFILE) OUTFILE(MPGLIB/MPGOBJD). 

This is scheduled to run once a week at 3:30 am on Sunday. The data in MPGOBJD is used by 

PERFNAVDR (the next time it runs) to collect information on library and object sizes. 

PERFNAVIFS – IFS Information Collection Process 

This job runs once a week (Sunday 5:00) and collects IFS information used for reporting (i.e. 

directory & stream files sizes). 

PERFNAVPG – PurGe Reduced Data 

This job runs once a month and 'trims back' the amount of reduced performance data. Three 

years of highly summarized data is kept. 

PERFNAVPM – Check Performance Monitor 

This job makes sure the performance monitor (Collection Services) is running. Since the performance 

monitor usually keeps itself running, PERFNAVPM usually doesn't do anything. 



PerfNav Menu – (6) Work With Customization 

Work with Customization Options 

This screen shows all the Customization options 

The Options are: 

High Priority Limit – For “Priority” graphs, this field determines the priority that is designated 

as “high” priority 

First Shift / Second Shift – Shows default shift criteria time range 

(MPG recommends that this parameter should not be changed) 

Performance data library – Indicates where the collection services performance data is stored 

Performance Data Purge Days – Indicates the number of days the system will retain the raw 

performance data members before it is deleted 



PerfNav Menu – (7) Status & Information Screen 

(1) 

(2) 

(3) 

(4) 

Performance Navigator Status Screen 

This menu is used to check the status of the Performance Navigator environment on the 

AS/400. 

(1) Status of Performance Monitor / Collection Services jobs 

(2) Raw “Current day” Performance Data Information 

(i.e. Q members in either QPFRDATA or QMPGDATA) 

(3) Performance Navigator Release 

(4) Data Reduction Data Information (Historical Data) 


Understanding the Graph Levels 

Four Levels: 

Graphs by Month 

The graphs by month are labeled “Month” 

on the X-axis. The points on the X-axis 

are labeled with month names and the 

year. The values that are plotted are 

month averages or totals. The month averages 

by default do not include the weekends. 

Most graphs by month allow you to 

drill to a lower level to view the data by 

week. To drill-down to the week level, use 

the drill down toolbar button 

in the right hand cor- 

Says 

ner 

Graphs by Week 

The graphs by week are shown when a 

graph is selected from the main menu 

Graph option. Graphs by Week are labeled 

“Week” on the X-axis. 

in the right hand cor- 

Says 

ner 

The labels on the X-axis points are dates, 

which indicate the first day of the week. 

The month names and year is centered 

below the values for the weeks. The values 

that are plotted are weekly averages or 

totals. Most graphs by week allow you to 

drill to a lower level showing the data by 

date, or drill to a higher level showing the 

data by month. 

To drill-up to the month level, 

use the toolbar button. 

To drill-down to the date level, use the 

toolbar button. 


Understanding the Graph Levels (cont) 

Graphs by Date 

The graphs by date are labeled 

“Date” on the X-axis. The points on 

the X-axis are labeled with dates. The 

month names and year is centered 

below the values for the dates. The 

values plotted are the averages or totals 

for one shift of the day. Most 

graphs by date allow you to drill up to 

view the data by week. You can also 

drill down, up to 395 prior days, to 

view the data by time of day for the 

date you are interested. To drill down 

to view the data by time of day, rightclick 

in the graph for the day you are 

interested in, 

then select Drill/Down on the popup 

menu or by clicking the drill down icon Says in the right hand corner 

Graphs by Time (24 hr) 

The graphs by time are labeled 

“Time” on the X-axis. The points on 

the X-axis are labeled with the time of 

day. The values plotted are the averages 

or totals for the period ending at 

the time indicated. For the last 365 

days, you can drill down into any interval 

(15-Minutes by default) to view 

all the jobs and the key resources used 

during a specific interval. To drill up 

to view the data by date, use the 

toolbar button with the arrows pointing 

up. 

Says 

in the right hand corner 


Graphs Available By Category 

Average Day Graph 

This PerfNav exclusive allows users to 

average any consecutive date range in 

the last 365 days. The values plotted 

are averages values at each time of 

day. For example, what CPU percent 

utilization should you expect at 9:00 

a.m.? 

If not specifically selected, the date 

range defaults to the last 4 weeks. 

(See Average Day Date Range 

below) 

The beauty of the Average day graph 

lies in a sophisticated weighted averaging 

technique, which results in the average 

values by time of day. This is 

necessary because the input (i.e. performance 

monitor or collection services) 

is not nicely arranged in 15- 

minute intervals. The data intervals 

are usually approximately 15 minutes, but they could be 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or any interval 

used by the IBM i performance monitor or collection services. The interval lengths can change 

from day to day. The interval end times can also vary drastically from day to day. By default, 

weekends are not included in the average days. Keep in mind when looking at the default 

(last 4 weeks, M-F) average day graphs, that approximately 20 daily readings went into the calculation 

of each point. Note: Many of the 20 readings were less than the calculated value and 

many were more. This means that if at any time your average is near a guideline (e.g. 80% 

DASD), you are frequently over the guideline. This is important for capacity planning considerations. 

Your average day must fit comfortably below the guidelines. These graphs also help 

determine how different peak days are from the average. 


Graphs Available By Category (cont) 

Selecting an Average Day Date Range 

Performance Navigator generates graphs based on date criteria set up previously by the user. 

The date range is set up via EDIT/IBM I/DATE or simply by selecting GRAPH / AVERAGE DAY / 

DATE RANGE. Regardless of the method, the average date criteria can be set up with a default 

value (The last four weeks), or a specified period (I.e. Oct 1 st – Oct 31 st ). See below: 

(Setting the What If baseline data) 

This date range is also used for What If 

In our example, we set 31Oct07 (Oct 31, 2007) to the average 

date. See above date range. 

Best Practice Guideline: Your baseline data for your capacity 

planning projects should always be one day as shown 

in the example 

Next, we introduce Peak Day Graphs... 



Current Day Graph 

Current day graphs represent a significant 

advance in performance problem 

determination. These graphs and the 

ability to drill down into any interval for 

more detail allow problems to be diagnosed 

after-the-fact with unprecedented 

ease. These graphs display statistics 

from the IBM raw performance data 

and not from the MPG reduced data. 

By default, the last member in the performance 

data files is displayed. If performance 

data is currently being collected 

(which is usually the case), then the 

data is for the current day and the point 

furthest to the right is the most recent 

data collected. If more than 15 minutes 

have elapsed, it is necessary to click the 

Data Refresh button to display the most 

recent information. 

Selecting A Prior Current Day Member 

Even though the current day is shown by default, it is possible to view data for prior days. This 

is accomplished by clicking the Select Past Day option under Graphs/Current Day. When the 

Edit/IBM i Information/Performance Data panel appears, click the member pull-down box in the 

Performance Data box. 

Select Past Day Menu Option 

Select past IBM data member from pull down 

Use the pull down 

to select a “past” 

day. 



Peak Day Graph 

Selecting a peak day graph will automatically scan prior days of data searching for the day using 

the most of some metric. For example, what day used the most interactive CPU? By default 

the last 4 weeks are scanned over 24 hours. This is a volume analysis to determine the day 

that consumed the most of any metric. This may not be the peak day in terms of highest interval 

usage (see Maximum Interval Graphs below for highest intervals). To change the date 

range or the time of day that is scanned, click “Graphs/Peak Day/Date/Time Range” or click 

“Edit/Dates.” A maximum of 365 prior days are available. You can also change the time 

criteria. (i.e. 8 to 5). 



Selecting a Peak Day Graph Date Range 

Just like average day graphs, peak day date ranges are set up in a similar fashion. The date range is set up via 

EDIT/IBM i /DATE or simply by selecting GRAPH/PEAK DAY/ DATE RANGE. Regardless of the method, the peak 

date criteria can be set up with a default value (The last four weeks), or a specified period (I.e. Jan 1st – Oct 31st). 

See below: 

Note: The peak day range has been 

selected... 

MPG allows users to ignore anomalies 

and select the appropriate Peak Day. 

This is done by simply pressing 

the ‘2nd Highest’ button below. 

This functionality is an excellent way to 

choose the appropriate day used for capacity 

planning projects (What If). 

Click to see other 

days selected... 



Service Level Graphs 

Service level graphs show the key components that can affect performance. The idea is that if 

these service levels are being met 95% of the time (5% being anomalies), one doesn’t have to 

worry about the particular component 

MPG uses these best practice guidelines: 

Machine Pool Faulting — Less than 10 Faults/sec 

Disk Arm Utilization — Less than 15 % Busy 

Response Time Avg — Less than 1 Second 

Disk Resp Time —- Less than 4ms 

In this example, machine pool 

faulting is within the best practice 

guideline 92% of the time. 



New Service Level Capability – Service Level Time & Date Range 

MPG created functionality to allow users to measure their key performance 

components for specific periods throughout the day. A great example is looking at specific 

component during peak processing time. See below: 

Select Date/Time 

Range 

Service Level graphs now show metrics for 

desired period 

In this example, we measure machine pool 

faulting between 8am—5pm 



Service Level Graphs—Configurable Guidelines 

MPG takes pride in providing best practice guidelines. That is, being performance experts, 

we understand the best practice guidelines that ensure your IBM is operating optimally. 

Examples of these guidelines are machine pool faulting (


Other Graphs Available 

User Defined Graphs 

These CPU graphs allow you to specify a desired time frame to measure when measuring various 

metrics CPU utilization, Disk...) 

In this example, CPU % is being 

measured between 14:00—17:00 

Selecting a User Defined Shift Time 

User Defined Graphs are set up via the GRAPH/User Defined Shift / Change Shift Time menu 

option. Note that predefined shifts are available for use. See Below: 

User define shifts can set via the predefined options, 

or users can put in their own desired shift 


Understanding The GRAPH Menu 

These graphs are all “historical” in nature 

They have all four intervals – MONTH, WEEK, DAY…That is they drill up 

& down 

These graphs SQL MPG historical files (MPGSHF, MPGINT…) 

These graphs SQL to the IBM collection services files & return a 24 hr 

These are for monthly reports & capacity planning. They return 1 day or a 24 

hour view (Not Drillable) 


Screen Options 

This is the 

PerfNav tool bar 

File 

The FILE option is like most Windows applications. Under PerfNav, FILE lets you: 

Open specialized (non standard) graphs 

Save graphs as .BMP or .JPG objects 

Setup your printing environment 

Select to print Landscape or portrait 

E-mail a graph or report via PerfNav 

Select graph and/or report production 

Go into a technical support interface called SOS 

Select the PN/400 Installation process. 

Edit 

The EDIT option allows you to customize PerfNav environment. Under PerfNav EDIT, you can: 

Copy graphs and/or corresponding data to the clipboard (i.e. for use in e-mail, spreadsheets) 

Set up IBM i (AS/400) options (i.e., dates, alias, LPAR info, keycodes, passwords, Prior CPU) 

Set up Graph customization parameters (i.e., fonts, data specifics, subtitles, etc) 

Set up report sets (automates the report generation process) 

Set up specialized groups of jobs and/or users (used to categorize functional areas for graphing 

and reporting) 

Connect to a desired IBM i. This should only have to be done once. 

Enter multiple to one keycode. Note: one to one keycode should be entered via the Edit/ 

IBM i Info/keycode menu. 

View 

The VIEW option lets you view previously defined IBM i information, as well as seeing the actual 

IBM i data that is behind the graphs. Additionally, this option displays or hides the PerfNav 

toolbar (which will be discussed in the next section) and allows you to add footnotes to the 

bottom of your graphs. 

Graph 

The GRAPH option is why we are here. In this section, all standard graphs are displayed from 

this pull down. 

See next page for the remaining screen options 


Screen Options (cont) 

Analytics 

The Analytics section is a one stop shopping place for all analysis functionality This includes 

all analysis scripts as well as any analytical tools and the like: 

Note: Analytical scripts & tools are an advanced topic and are covered later in the SCRIPTS section 

Reports 

This section allows you to display monthly reports for the following areas: 

Monthly Summary Reports 

System Activity 

Daily Job Summary 

Library & Object report 

Hardware 

User Licensing 

WHAT IF Modeling 

The “WHAT IF” modeling option lets you plan for the future by doing capacity planning modeling 

based on your system’s current trends. 

Help 

This option gives you online help documentation. It includes the PerfNav Technical Support 

telephone number and current release. You can also take tours of the product. 


The Tool Bar 

The PerfNav tool bar is an extremely handy part of the product. Some of the Icons will appear 

or disappear based on the level or graph you have selected. 

The tool bar icons functions are below 

1. Zoom in / Zoom out within desired graphs 

2. Change Scale -Toggle on/off the Y-axis automatic scaling method 

3. Drill up / drill down within desired graphs. (Month, week, date or time) 

4. Next / Previous Graph - works like backward and forward icons on browsers. 

5. Extrapolate the trend lines. (Only on week and month levels) 

6. Guidelines—Toggle on / off guideline background 

7. 3D - Toggle on / off 3D graphing effect 

8. Print to default printer 

9. Save graph or report to default directory 

10.UnHide— Un-hides Previously Hidden Data 

11.Refresh the graph data 

12.Script (What IF Scripting) 


Zoom In 

The first tool bar button is shown below: 

This button is used to shrink the window / zoom in on a desired graph. This will 

cause the graph to zoom in one point on each end of the “X” axis. 

Note: the dates at the 

bottom of the graph. 

(30 weeks are shown) 

In the example below, 

(ZOOM IN) was clicked numerous times 

Note the dates on the “X” 

axis now reflect only 3 

weeks 


Zoom Out 

The second tool bar button is shown below: 

This button is used to shrink the window / zoom out on a desired graph. This will 

cause the graph to show all the possible data. 

Note the dates on the “X” 

axis now reflect only 3 

weeks 

In the example below, (ZOOM Out) 

was clicked numerous times 

Note: the dates at the bottom 

of the graph. 

(30 weeks are shown again) 


Change Scale 

The 3rd tool bar button is shown below: 

This button is use to toggle on / off the automatic scale for the Y-axis. By default, PerfNav will 

scale the “Y” axis to the highest point for all the data retrieved via the SQL. 

Notice that the data 

extends past the top of the 

screen 

. 

In the example below, 

(Change Scale) was clicked once 

Notice the data now 

fits on the screen 

Note: 

When Change Scale is 

selected, it is “toggled” 

on. This means the Y 

Axis can not be manually 

adjusted until the 

button is clicked again 

(Toggled off) 


Drill Down 

This button is to drill down into a more detail level of data. Remember that PerfNav 

tracks 1 st and 2 nd shift summarized data by Month, Week, and Date. PerfNav also keeps 365 

days of interval data. The drill down button allows you to drill down to a lower level. When 

you reach the Time graph (interval data), you will see the drill down icon try gray. This means 

you are at the lowest graph level. However, from the time graph, you can still drill down to 

see all the jobs that were running in the interval. To drill down to see these job, just place 

your cursor in the graphed arrow (the cursor will be an up arrow), right click, and select drill 

down. 

Drill Up 

This button is to drill up into the data. Clicking the Drill up button drills up to the next level. 

This is extremely useful when your data is too granular. For example, if you wanted “monthly” 

trends instead of “weekly” trends, you could drill up to a monthly view. This is the highest level 

we can access. 

At the MONTH level, one can simply drill down to the WEEK level 

At the WEEK level, one can drill down to DATE. Once can also drill up to the MONTH level. 

At the DATE level, one can drill down to TIME. Once can also drill up to the WEEK level. 

At the Time level, one can drill down to a report / detail level. 

DATE level. 

Once can also drill up to the 


Pie Chart 

This button gives pie chart representation of the data shown 

In the example above, the data is automatically calculated into a pie chart. (Notice the colors 

match perfectly). This functionality helps you understand your data at a deeper level. 

Also note that the x axis dates automatically are brought up to the sub title of the graph as 

well. 

Previous Graph 

Next Graph 

After looking at a series of graphs, this button shows the graph that was 

previously displayed 

This button shows the next graph from the previously viewed graphs. 

Explain Graph 

This button explains each graph via the online help documentation. 


Combine With Previous Graph 

PerfNav has an amazing ability to merge two graphs together 

First Graph (previous) 

We bring up the 2 nd graph & 

Next we go to our next desired 

graph...response time 

press the 

icon 

Both metrics have been merged on the same 


Extrapolate 

This button will toggle between extrapolating the trend line for “X” number of weeks or 

months, showing the next year’s growth rate, and turning off extrapolation. The number of weeks 

or months extrapolated can be change via the Edit/Graph Options/Advanced menu. 

Upon pressing extrapolate, 

the predicted growth 

is shown... 

Upon pressing extrapolate 

again, the trend 

growth rate percentages 

are shown… 


Guidelines 

This button displays performance guidelines as a back ground on your graphs. This is 

used to ensure your current performance data is within IBM or MPG stated (and sometimes arbitrary) 

guidelines. 

A common example is disk utilization. That is, IBM states that when disk utilization reaches 

80%, performance degradation can occur. It’s important to note that these guidelines are just 

“stakes in the sand,” and are simply there to warn you when your performance data is creeping 

up. It is also important to note the level of data you’re graphing. The guidelines for the 

Month level could be lower that the guidelines at the week level. All systems and workloads 

are not the same, so performance results and performance degradation guidelines may 

vary. 

Guideline 1 is the color 

background on the graph 

Green—Good 

Yellow—Warning 

Red—Over best practice 

guideline 

Guideline 2 is a solid green 

line 

Note: This type of guideline 

is not available on all 

graphs 


3D Effect 

This button toggles between 2D and 3D effect. The few points on the “X” axis the 

more prominent the 3D effect. The graph below shows the Disk GB stored in 3D 

mode. 

Print 

Refresh 

Clicking this button will print the graph to the default Windows printer. 

This button simply refreshes the data, as it brings in the current data from 

your AS/400 data connection 

Run next step in Script 

This button will run the step in a script. The icon will only appear when running 

a script. 

Un-hide Data 

This button will un-hide previously hidden graph data. 


Create Footnotes 

Footnotes can be added via the VIEW / Footnote command. This is very useful when additional 

explanation is need for the graph. The graph below shows the footnote window at the bottom. 

On some graphs, you will see the footnote window automatically. If you choose not to 

use the automatic footnote, you can turn off the footnote or manually delete or add to the footnote. 

Also: the footnote can be dragged to anywhere on the graph 

Example of a 

footnote... 

Footnotes can be 

dragged to anywhere 

on the graph... 


Why Is My Cursor Changing? 

As you move the cursor around the PerfNav screen, you will notice that the cursor changes 

shapes in key areas. When the cursor changes, it simply means that it has moved into an area 

on the graph where we can do some hidden functionality. Listed below is a matrix of the possible 

cursor icons, and the associated functionality. 

Graph Cursors: 

This cursor appears when you are above the graphed data but still in the graphed area. 

When you hold down the Left button, you can drag the graph left or right. This only works if 

you are zoomed in. When you Right click, you will have the options to copy the graph into the 

clip board in a BMP format, copy the graph in a new window, or email the graph from within 

PerfNav. 

Trend Line Cursors: 

↔ When pointing at a trend line, you can Left click to bring up the Trend Statistics Window. 

You can also Right click to select other options related to trend lines. This will be explained in 

the “What Are Those Lines On Top of My Data” section. 

This will appear when you point to either end of the Trend line. This indicates that you 

can now drag the end of the Trend Line to a different point on the “X” axis. This gives you ultimate 

flexibility over the date range of your trending analysis. 

Axis Cursors: 

This cursor will appear when you are pointing to the “Y” axis. Holding down the Left 

button allows you to drag the “Y” axis up or down. Right clicking allows you to select some filtering 

/ deleting options. This option is useful in filtering or delete outliers in the data. 

↔ This cursor will appear when pointing to the middle of the “X” axis. It indicates 

that you can drag the graphed window left or right keeping the same number of “X” axis 

points. 

This cursor appears when pointing to the Left side of the “X” axis. It indicates 

that you can drag the left half of the graph either left or right. This is the fastest way to 

zoom in or out. 

This cursor appears when pointing to the Right side of the “X” axis. It indicates that 

you can drag the Right half of the graph either left or right. This is the fastest way to zoom 


The X & Y Axis 

The Y and X Axis’ have automatic default setting but can be adjusted manually. 

Adjusting the Y-Axis - Dragging the Y-Axis UP / Down 

The Y-axis by default adjusts to the data. That means the scale will as high as necessary to 

graph the highest number. The Y-axis for the Disk Space Utilization graph below by default 

was set to a maximum of 90. That is because there are several points over 80. If you zoom 

in to where there are zero points over 80 and click the third icon on the tool bar (auto scale), 

the Y-axis would lower to 80. 

Notice that the Y-axis is 

80%. Holding down the 

left mouse button, drag 

the mouse down. The 

goal is to manually adjust 

the scale. 

You can also manually change the Y-axis by dragging the scale up or down. Move the cursor 

on the Y axis until the following icon appears . Upon holding down the left mouse button, 

and dragging the Y-axis down, we can manually adjust the scale. In our example, we want 

to adjust the scale to 100%. 

Notice that the Y-axis is 

dragged to now be 100% 


Adjusting the X-Axis - Dragging the X-Axis Left / Right 

To drag the X-axis, move the cursor below the graph. If you move the cursor to the left of center, 

the cursor will “tip” one way 

Conversely, moving the cursor to the right of center, it 

will “tip” the other way- . 

Click and hold the left 

mouse button, and 

move it left and right. 

Dragging the x-axis 

provides a quickest 

way to zoom in and 

out The graph above 

was zoomed in using 

the dragging feature. 

Notice the days shown are now 

only October & November 

Drag the X Axis to the left 

You can also manually 

change the Y-axis by 

dragging the scale up 

or down. Move the 

cursor on the Y axis 

until the following 

icon appears . Upon 

holding down the left 

mouse button, and 

dragging the Y-axis 

down, we can manually 

adjust the scale. In 

our example, we want 

to adjust the scale to 

100%. 

Notice the days shown are now 

only Nov 1st— Nov 13th 


Trend Lines 

Trend lines are the straight lines that extend across a graph. Trend lines are calculated using a 

linear regression algorithm. The term “trend” refers to the fact that over a long period of time, 

the underlying trend in the data is revealed. For example, over the course of months or years 

there may be a gradual increase in the amount of DISK used each day. 

This trend can be used to predict future changes. The trend lines are dynamic, allowing the 

user to determine the range over which the line is calculated. This is useful to set the initial 

point from which trends are calculated. By default, trends are calculated over the entire 

range of data (up to three years). 

On the Disk Utilization graph below, we see the trend line: 

By pointing the cursor to the end of the trend line and dragging it to another data, you can manually 

adjust the starting or ending date. With the cursor pointing to a date within the graphed area 

(cursor will be an up arrow), you can also right click and select Start Trends Here or End Trends 

Here. 

This is the trend line. It 

is used to predict future 

performance data. 

Trends will be discussed in more detail in the Performance Management section 


Filtering & Deleting Data 

Y-Axis Right Click Options 

When you cursor is pointing to the Y-axis, you can right click and get the following options. 

Basically, these are filtering options. These options will filter the data on the PC only. By 

clicking the Refresh icon, you can restore the data:Filter greater than “xx” (‘xx’ is the Y-axis 

value where you were pointing when the right mouse button was clicked:Filter less than 

“xx” (‘xx’ is the Y-axis value where you were pointing when the right mouse button was 

clicked: 

Delete greater than “xx” (‘xx’ is the Y-axis value where you were pointing when the right mouse 

button was clicked: 

Delete less than “xx” (‘xx’ is the Y-axis value where you were pointing when the right mouse 

button was clicked: 

To filter data, simply position your cursor on the 

Y axis at the range you desire to filter 

In our example, we right clicked on the Y axis 

with the mouse positioned just above 1.225 


IBM i Current Connection Identifier 

The IBM i current connection identifier is located in the very left hand corner of the graph. The 

graph below indicates that PerfNav is currently connected to system MPG520P 

The current connected IBM i is shown 

inside this status window. In this case, 

we are connected to a box called 

MPG520P. 

Positioning our cursor on this window, 

and pressing either mouse button, 

brings up a list of systems we can 

connect to. 


Data Scope Indicator 

The data scope indicator can be dragged to show the available graph data 

Here we show only 4 months of data...Next, we drag the data scope indicator to the left 

Notice now that the 

Data Scope Indicator 

has been dragged all 

the way to the left. 

This indicates that all 

the data is being 

shown 


Graph ID 

The PerfNav graph ID is next to the IBM i Current Connection window. In the graph below, 

the graph ID is DSKU (Disk Utilization by Month) 

The Performance Navigator Graph 

ID is listed here. 

Shown as follows: 

Data Window 

This window is key to our success as it shows us the current values of the data. That is, by 

simply positioning the cursor on the data on the graph, we see pertinent data information. 

In the above graph, we are pointing at November 2010. See data window contents below: 


Remove Gaps In Data 

Notice the huge gap in the data 

Upon pressing remove gap: 

Notice the huge gap is removed 


Graph Properties 

Graphs can be customized in many ways. One area where customization can occur is via Graph 

Properties. 

From the workload legend, right clicking brings up the following submenu:: 

Hide 

Stack / Unstack 

Color 

Graph Type (Bar, Area, Line, Dot, Pie) 

Move Layer (Back, Forward) 

Graph on Right Axis 

Show values 

Side By Side 

Randomize colors 


Copy Bitmap 

Select this option will place a bitmapped copy of the graph on the Windows Clipboard. This 

allows one to paste PerfNav graphs into Word, Power Point, email... 

New Window 

Select this option to create an image of the current graph in another window. This facilitates 

side-by-side comparisons of multiple graphs. 

In this example, we compare CPU for two separate days via the side by side functionality 

Monday Data 

Sunday Data 

. 


PerfNav Email Capability 

PerfNav® provides limited email capabilities without leaving the program. A graph, or set of 

graphs, can be emailed as an attachment. To email a graph, click File/Email on the main menu. 

The Email form will be displayed. After you fill in the fields on the Email form, click the “Send” 

button. The ‘Status’ window on the Email form shows progress messages while preparing and 

sending the email. 

The PerfNav® email option will frequently not work due to firewall and DNS complications. If 

you encounter this problem, don’t spend too much time trying to fix it, because there are convenient 

alternatives. For example, you can copy a graph and paste in your typical email program. 

Another alternative is to click “File/Save Graph As…” and then attach the file in your 

email program 

This the PerfNav Email Window 


File Menu Options 

The FILE option is like most Windows applications. Upon right clicking on FILE, the above 

screen appears: 

Open Template 

This option allows one to open a 

graph that is saved as a template. 

It is normally a specialized 

graph that is not part of the normal 

graph pull downs. An example 

is a 24-hour graph looking at 

DASD utilization, which is not a 

standard graph. 

Run Script 

This option allows one to run Performance 

Navigator customized 

and predefined scripts. 

Save Template & Save 

Template As 

These options are used for the 

development of new graphs 

Save Graph As 

This option is to save the JPG 

files to a desired location. 

See window below 


File Menu Options (cont) 

Print Setup 

This option allows one to define the desired printer and corresponding printing properties. 

This is similar to the normal Windows printer set up. 

Print 

This option allows one to print the desired graph or report. Printing can be done either as a 

portrait or landscape layout. 

Email 

This option is explained on page 60. 

Production 

This option is used in conjunction with Report Sets which are explained on page 77. 

SOS-Second Opinion Service 

SOS is a capacity planning service performed by Midrange Performance Group (MPG) or your 

IBM business partner. The SOS facility within PerfNav provides a convenient way to send performance 

data to MPG. The screen is shown below: 

When you click “File/SOS…” on the main menu the 

SOS form is displayed. The SOS form allows you to: 

1. Select the desired AS/400 (your machines will 

be listed) 

2. Select the type of data to be sent 

When you click the “Continue” button, the data will 

be retrieved from the AS/400 and written to a file 

on your PC named “SOS_1012345.GPD” (where 

1012345 is the AS/400 serial number). Next, the 

Performance Navigator® integrated email form will 

display. You should fill in your email information 

and click send. 

If, for any reason (e.g., firewall, network connection, 

etc.), the integrated email facility is unable to 

transmit the file, you should close Performance 

Navigator’s email window and send the PC file using 

your normal email program (e.g., Notes, Exchange, 

etc.). The file should be mailed to 

“sos@mpginc.com” 


Edit Menu Options 

The EDIT “pull down screen is listed below: 

Copy 

This option allows one to Click ‘Edit/Copy’ to copy a bitmap of the currently displayed graph 

into the clipboard. You can then ‘paste’ the graph in another program, e.g. word processor, 

email editor, etc. 

Copy / Paste Data 

This option allows one to copy / paste the data values from the graph. This is useful if one 

wants to copy the data to a spreadsheet. It works the same way as COPY. That is. Upon clicking 

on COPY DATA, the data can be pasted to another program, e.g. word processor, email editor, 

etc. 

System Options 

This option has a sub-menu that allows parameters to be set for each IBM i that you have connected 

to: 

Graph Report Options 

This option has a sub-menu that allows customization to various graphs (Selection Parms, 

Fonts, Background, sub titles and Service Levels...) 

Report Sets 

This option allows users to set up structured performance metrics (i.e. Monthly Report) 


Edit Menu Options (cont) 

GROUPS 

User profiles, job names libraries, and systems can be grouped for graphing and reporting 

Connections 

Creates ODBC connections between the IBM i and the PC 

Registration 

Group Keys are entered in this section. Note it is recommended to enter keys in the individual 

key code field—See IBM i Options / Keycode 


View Menu Options 

System Information 

Displays system specification data for the “connected” system. See example below 


View Menu Options (cont) 

Graph Options 

This option is an advanced option for those who like to “push buttons”. That is, for those of 

you out there that don't like the product defaults in regards to colors and the like, feel free to 

play here. Be careful! :) 



Series Data 

This subtask opens up a spreadsheet on top of the current graph. It shows the data behind the 

graph. Some columns are data used to calculate the values that are graphed. In the picture 

shown, the total faulting rate is shown. The columns that are “graphed” have a ‘G’ in the column 

title—See column 5 below: 

Toolbar 

This subtask is simply a toggle ) switch 

to hide the Performance Navigator tool 

bar. The tool bar is rarely turned off. 

The only time this as a viable option, is 

when a side by side graph is used and 

one wants the y axis to match up 

The tool bar is shown below: 



Footnotes 

This subtask allows us to put customized footnotes on the screen. 

This is a how the footnote looks 

at the bottom of the screen. One 

then can drag the footnote to anywhere 

within the graph: 


Graph Menu Options 

The Graph menu was previously discussed on page 34. 

Graph Options 

These options are a series of parameters available to enhance your graphing 

experience. One can change the shift and graph type from this area 

Refresh Data — Allows one to toggle between NOW and EVERY 5 Minutes 

Shift Selection — Allows one to toggle between 1st , 2nd, 3rd, and ALL shifts 

Note: these shifts are set up via the PN/400 settings in option 6. MPG recommends looking at 

all data in 1st shift 

Hide Trend Lines — Allows one to hide any trend lines that are currently being shown 

Show Future Growth — Allows one to show the predicted growth percentages based on the 

trend line 

Graph Type — Allows one to globally change the graph type (Bar, Area, Line…) 

for all metrics shown... Note: It only makes changes for graph you are currently viewing 

Vertical Grid — Allows one to turn on vertical line within the graph interface. One can turn on 

lines at every year, every month, or every point. 

All LPARS— Allows one to connect to all previously connected LPARS for current graph 

Click To Drill Down — Allows one to drill down automatically on a left mouse click 

Logarithmic Scale — Allows one to view graphs with a logarithmic scale 

Crosshairs — Allows one to easily see the data values as one scrolls across the data values 

(Data values are shown on the left Y axis) 


Reports Menu Options 

MPG offers various reports to help you understand your systems at a deeper level. An inventory 

of all your jobs as well as management summary reports are available in a monthly report. 

Additionally, one can do detailed library and object analysis. See reports below: 

Monthly Summary Reports - To understand Batch & Interactive environments 

(Include GROUPS as well as Monthly Resource Consumption) 

Management Summary - These are a robust set of performance management reports designed 

to let management know exactly how the system is performing 

System Activity - Shows various commands (WRKSYSSTS, WRKDSKSTS, WRKSBS…) via a 

PerfNav spreadsheet report 

Hardware - Shows hardware detail reports (System Assets, LPAR Rack Configs, 

Processor History) 

Daily Summary - Shows every job that ran on your system for a desired date (Also Includes 

Job accounting codes) 

Library & Objects - Shows detail library & object growth reports (includes IFS) 

User Licensing - 

HTML Report showing total unique users & max concurrent users 

Select Report Date - 

Brings up the report date criteria window 


Reports—Spreadsheet Options 

Note that each report opens as a spreadsheet. Using the up, down, and side arrows, one can 

easily navigate through the report. On the next page, we will explain the many options available 

to us. 

Within all reports, one has many options. They are listed below: 

Sort Ascending 

Sort the report in ascending order based on the values in the column where you pressed the 

right mouse button. The column title can be click to sort a column. 

Sort Descending 

Sort the report in descending order based on the values in the column in which you pressed 

the right mouse button. For example, you can sort on the response time column to find users 

with the poorest response times. 

Graph 

Display a graph of the values for the user (or job or line or IOP) in the row where you clicked 

the right mouse button. For example, you can view a graph of an individual user’s average response 

time by month. 

Graph Column 

The second graph option on the pop-up menu pertains to the column where the mouse was 

clicked. This option will display a pie chart of all the values in the column. For example, you 

can view a pie chart comparing response time of all users. 

Copy 

Copy the report column data to the Windows Clipboard. If you first select a range of rows and 

columns, ‘Copy Range’ will appear in the pop-up menu. This option will copy the selected rows 

and columns (as well as the row and column titles) to the clipboard. 

Print Column 

Clicking this option will select (or deselect) a column for printing. This is necessary since there 

are usually more statistics on a report than can easily be printed across a page. When a column 

is selected for printing, a small green “P” will appear in the column title. Columns selected 

for printing are also the columns that are saved to a file, copied to the clipboard and 

emailed when these functions are performed. 


Reports Examples 

In the following pages, we will show various report examples. Please keep in mind that all 

available reports are not shown 

Interactive User Summary 

Batch Job Summary 


Reports Examples (cont) 

GROUP Report Examples 

Note: These reports are used in conjunction with the amazing GROUPS functionality 

(EDIT / GROUPS) 

User summary 

Job summary 



Resource Consumption 

Below, we will show various report resource consumption reports. These reports should be done at the 

start of every month so one can understand their system at a deeper level. The reports can be done 

at either the job level or subsystem level. 

This report show the top jobs that used the 

most CPU resources for the previous month 

Note: 

IO & Faulting 

also available 

This report show the top subsystems in 

regards to sync IO 



Management Summary 

These performance management reports are designed to ensure your boss (and his boss!) know that the 

system is performing well. Below we show a couple pages from the robust 10 page monthly interactive 

report: 



Library & Object & IFS 

These reports are designed to ensure you understand your library / IFS usage at a deeper level 

Library & Object Summary 

System i / p Asset Management Report 



Library Change Analysis 

These reports are designed to ensure you understand why your disk utilization is growing. This report 

can be accesses via the Analytics menu as well 

Above, we “red flag” new libraries or ones that have alarming growth… 

Next, we can look at single library to understand why it has grown in size 



Library Object Analysis 

These reports are designed to ensure you understand why a library is growing. This report can be accesses 

via the Analytics menu as well 

Above, we analyze library QGPL. Notice we “red flag” new objects or ones that have alarming 

growth… 


Reports Examples 

Rack Detail Report 


Understanding the PerfNav Key Code Process 

Like other software products, Performance Navigator ® (PerfNav TM ) requires a software key to run 

the application successfully. New keys may be needed for several reasons: 

Initial Product Purchase – to activate full functionality of the product 

After hardware upgrades where the IBM i to which the code was originally licensed has 

been replaced by a new IBM i with a different serial number. 

After installing a new version of Performance Navigator 

To activate all functions of the software on a temporary basis for product evaluation 

To activate all functions of the software for capacity planning – usually done by Midrange 

Performance Group ® (MPG) or a business partner. 

Key Code Rule Of Thumb: 

The key code is dependent on the PerfNav version and the serial # of the machine 

There are two types of key codes that can be entered within Performance Navigator: 

1. An Individual Key Code 

2. A Group Key Code 

They are defined as follows: 

Individual Key Code – Individual keys apply to a single IBM i serial number and are entered via 

the EDIT / IBM i OPTIONS / KEYCODE tabs in Performance Navigator. 

Group Key Code – Group keys are occasionally used by those who manage more than one system 

at one time. A single key enables the software on more than one IBM i and requires connection 

to all systems which the key code includes. Group keys are entered via the EDIT / 

REGISTRATION / ENTER KEY tabs. 


Understanding the PerfNav Key Code Process (cont) 

Individual Key Code 

Upon receiving the individual key code(s) from MPG: 

1. Run Performance Navigator. 

2. Click "Edit/IBM i Options/Keycode". 

If it is not already selected, use the pull-down box to select the system name to which the code 

will be applied. 

(1) Enter the key in the individual key code field 

(2) If LPAR’d environment—Press the APPLY TO LPARs 

Button 

(3) Double click on the software key box and enter the key code. Repeat steps 3 

& 4 for each system and/or partition to which you are applying a code. 

(4) Close this window by clicking the "X" in the upper right corner of the 

window. 

(5) Terminate the Performance Navigator program 

(6) Re-start Performance Navigator. If the key code is valid, all functions 

should now be unlocked and available. 


CREATING REPORT SETS 

PerfNav contains so many reports and graphs that it can be overwhelming. Report sets are a 

convenient way to manage a set of reports and graphs. For example, you may want to define 

a set of graphs and reports to email to individuals on a monthly basis. 

To define a report set, click ‘Edit/Report Sets’. To define a new report set, click ‘New’. Give 

the new ‘(untitled)’ report set a meaningful description by typing over the description. Next, 

select the graphs and reports to be included in the set. After selecting the graphs and reports 

for the report set, click the ‘Parameters’ tab or ‘IBM i’ tab to define additional options for the 

report set. 

The defined report sets will appear under ‘File/Production’ on the main menu. The report sets 

can be selected to ‘Print’, ‘Email’, ‘Save to disk’, or ‘Preview’. 

When EDIT / REPORT SET is selected, the initial screen is displayed: 

Graphs Tab 


CREATING REPORT SETS (cont) 

Graphs Tab—Naming Report Sets 

Next, we need to name the report set. This done simply by typing the desired name in 

the Description field: 



Parameters Tab 

At this point, the basic report set is defined. We now have other parameters that we can define 

within the report set. This is done via the EDIT / REPORT SET / PARAMETERS 



Report Set Parameters: 

Orientation – Determines how the graphs are printed (Landscape vs. Portrait) 

EMAIL / DISK – Determines how the graphs objects are saved (.JPG vs. .BMP) 

Graphs per Page – Determines how many graphs will appear on each printed page 

Height & Width in Pixels – Allows customization of the graph size 

Directory – Location where reports sets are saved (Used with EDIT / PRODUCTION / SAVE To 

DISK) 

Time Frame – Determines report set date criteria 

Months – Determines how many months will be displayed for historical graphs 

(36 is the default) 

Weeks – Determines how many weeks will be displayed for historical graphs 

(52 is the default) 

Days – Determines how many days from the current date will be displayed in “date” interval graphs 

NOTE: (31 days indicates to display the prior month i.e Jan 1 31st) 

Average Days – Determines how many days are used to calculate report set average 

Day graphs (28 is the default) 

Yesterday – Indicates to use Yesterday’s date 

Shift – Indicates to what shift to query 

Extrapolate – Determines whether historical graphs will use extrapolation 

Guidelines – Determines whether a guideline template is placed on top of the graphs 

Sub Title – Title which will appear on all graphs 

Email Address – Identifies Report Set recipients 

Email Subject Report Set Email Subject (i.e. “Daily Reports – August 1st “) 

Email Message – Short description of attached graphs 



Graph Selection Parameters Tab 

Next, we have the ability to enter the graph selection parameters (if applicable) 

That is, one can graph multiple faulting rate graphs (i.e. pool 1,2,3 & 4) within a report set. 

To do this, see the below screen: 



Parameters Selected System Tab 

Next, we simply choose the pertinent systems that the data will come from. 

This is done via EDIT / REPORT SETS / Preselect Systems. 



Scripts Tab 

Next, we can choose advanced detail scripts to run within our report sets. 

NOTE: MPG strongly recommends that only one script be attached to a report set. If one 

decides to run multiple scripts within a single report set, unpredicted results can occur 



Next, we are ready to run the report set. This is done via FILE / PRODUCTION. 

Producing the Report Sets 

Now that we have a report set defined, we have 4 report set “production” options: 

1. PRINT – Prints the report set graphs to a selected printer 

2. EMAIL – Allows one to email send the report set graphs 

3. SAVE To DISK – Saves the report set graphs to disk 

4. PREVIEW - Shows the report set graphs 

( 



Next, we are ready to run the report set. This is done via FILE / PRODUCTION. 

Preview Report Sets 

Next, we will preview the “Monthly Reports” report set. – 

FILE / PRODUCTION / PREVIEW 



Upon choosing FILE / PRODUCTION / PREVIEW, the graphs are displayed: 

NOTE: Once we approve 

the graph results, we simply 

can PRINT them, save the 

graphs to disk, or email 

them to the user community. 

(PRINT, SAVE & PRE- 

VIEW process the same). 

Next, we will look at how 

we email report sets. 


EMAILING REPORT SETS 

Emailing Report Sets 

Upon choosing FILE / PRODUCTION / EMAIL, the graphs can be emailed: 

Note: 

Email parameter must be set up via 

File / Email: 

1) First, PerfNav connects to the email 

server 


EMAILING REPORT SETS 

Upon choosing FILE / PRODUCTION / EMAIL, the graphs are emailed to a desired user. 

The email is then sent successfully… 

My report set graphs are now in 

my INBOX… 


REPORT SET AUTOMATION (Using Windows Scheduled Tasks) 

From time to time, we get requests on how the report set process can be automated. This is 

done via Windows Scheduled Tasks. To set up a report set in a scheduled task, see the steps 

below” 

Upon going into systems tasks (START / CONTROL PANEL / SCHEDULE TASKS), the following 


NOTE: This documentation has many references 

to V12. If running a different version 

than V12, please change to the appropriate version 

number when applicable. 


REPORT SET AUTOMATION (cont) 

Next, we double-click on the “ADD SCHEDULED TASK” icon – the scheduled task wizard will appear… 

Click on NEXT 

Upon pressing NEXT, the scheduled task wizard appears. Select the version of Performance 

Navigator that you are running 

: 

Select PerfNav & Press NEXT 



Next, we name the new task. In the example, we are calling the new task. In this example, we 

name the task: - Performance Navigator 12 - Report Set Automation. Additionally, we 

indicate the frequency of are new scheduled task (DAILY) – Press NEXT 

Next, we select the time and day we want the task to start - – Press NEXT 



Next, we enter needed security information – Press NEXT 

Next, we receive a message that the task has been scheduled. However, we must further 

configure the task. This is done via the advanced properties. Check the “Open advanced 

properties” and press FINISH. 

Ensure this is “check marked” 



Next, we configure (add) the report set commands to the newly created scheduled task. This 

done via the scheduled task properties. The key is the command syntax of two fields: 

Run 

Start In 

The appropriate syntax is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12\PerfNav.exe” 

XXXXXX YYYYYY 

Where XXXXXX = the report set command (PRINT, EMAIL, SAVE) 

Where YYYYYY = the actual report set name (i.e. Daily Reports) 

(Note the location of the quotation marks) 

In the example, we want a started task that will automatically save the report set data to disk. 

The RUN command is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12\PerfNav.exe" 

save daily reports 

The START IN path is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12” 

NOTE: If running a different 

version than V12, please change 

to the appropriate version number 

when applicable 



Upon adding the report set specific data with the correct syntax...Press OK. 

The new command is entered… 

Note: Quotes surround the 

fully qualified path name… 

The task is now ready to run… 


DELETING REPORT SETS 


To Delete a Report Set, Press DELETE 


DELETING REPORT SETS 


To confirm deletion of a report set, Press Yes 


Performance Navigator Groups 

Some of the most powerful functionality of the product is Performance Navigator GROUPS. 

That is, User profiles, job names and libraries can be grouped for graphing and reporting. For 

example, the Accounting users can be grouped or the Information Systems users can be 

grouped. Another example is grouping functional areas within your company (Order Entry, 

Warehouse, Accounting…) To define groups, click ‘Edit/Groups’ on the main menu. 

The group screen is shown below: 

First, we will introduce USER GROUPS—See Next Page 


Creating User Groups 

User groups allow one to measure interactive users. Click on USERS & Press the NEW GROUP 

button. The screen will look as follows: 

On the next page, we will enter the name of our USER group 

. 


Creating User Groups 

Next, we enter the name of our USER group and press ENTER 

. 

In our example, we type in the name of 

our first group “Dir of EDU” 


Creating User Groups (cont) 

Upon entering the user item, and pressing ENTER, a new item field occurs. We can either input 

a new item for the group, or simply press ENTER: 

One can enter a new item OR Press ENTER again for a NEW GROUP 

Upon entering all our user group names, one must enter a wild card in order to see all 

user data: 


Creating Job Groups 

Job groups allow one to measure batch jobs by functional area. Click on Jobs & Press the NEW 

GROUP button. The screen will look as follows: 

To enter a new “Job” group: 

1 Highlight Jobs & Press New Group 

2 Enter the Job Group Name in the box provided – in our example, make a 

job group called: ODBC 

In this example, we are creating a group to measure the ODBC environment... 


Creating Job Groups (cont) 

Upon entering the job tem, and pressing ENTER, a new item field occurs. We can either input a 

new item for the group, or simply press ENTER: 

One can enter a new item OR Press ENTER again for a NEW GROUP 

Upon entering all our JOB group names, one must enter a wild card in order to see all 

user data: 



Importing Subsystem Jobs 

One can press IMPORT JOBS to automatically import all jobs within a subsystem: 



Importing Subsystem Jobs (cont) 

One can press IMPORT JOBS to automatically import all jobs within a subsystem: 



Importing Subsystem Jobs (cont) 

After pressing IMPORT JOBS, the following appears: 



Pasting the specific job names to the newly Created Job Group 

To add the job names, one can manually type in the specific job names. However, many times, there are 

many jobs within a group. A neat trick to enter the jobs is to do a WRKACTJOB and use the copy command 

to copy all the job names. To enter the specific job names, right click on the group name and select 

PASTE – see below: 

After copying the pertinent job 

name via WRKACTJOB, one can 

simply PASTE to the job group 

Important note: 

When pasting multiple jobs, 

only one item name will paste 

to an open item field. This is 

a product idiosyncrasy. 

To paste all items 

1) enter the group first 

2) Press enter twice so only 

the group exists 

3) Finally, right click on group 

name and select paste 

All Items will paste successfully 


Displaying PerfNav Group Graphs & Reports 

Groups graphs/data can be displayed in three locations: 

(1) One way to display user group output is via Current day graphs – See below: 

The graphed groups are 

shown throughout the 

day... 


Displaying PerfNav Group Graphs & Reports (cont) 

A second way to display user group output is via Monthly Reports – See below: 



To graph any column, simply right click and select Graph 

In this example we are graphing total transactions. See graph below: 

Sorting By Transactions... 

Transactions By GROUP is 

shown 

This is a great way to implement 

a charge back policy 



A third way to display user group output is via the GRAPH / JOBS SUBSYSTEM menu option – See 

below: 

NOTE: 

The historical jobs file 

(MPGJIN) retention period 

is only 90 days. We do 

this so disk resources are 

not affected negatively. 

In this example, 

we graph the 

group ODBC... 


The Navigator Panel 

In this section, our goal is to understanding the Navigator” panel. Utilizing a tree 

structure, this new area allows users to select systems, run graphs and run reports from one 

easy location. The Navigator panel is “turned on” simply checking the option via the VIEW 

menu option. See below: 

Navigator Panel turned off (No Check Mark) 

Navigator Panel turned on (Check Mark is present) 

See next page for a 

Navigator Panel example 


The Navigator Panel (cont) 

Upon turning on the Navigator panel, the Performance Navigator main screen will look as 

follows: 

This is the Navigator Panel. 

The first tab we will look at is the SYSTEMS tab—See Next page 


The Navigator Panel - Systems Tab 

Upon turning on the Navigator panel, the Performance Navigator main screen will look as 

follows: 

This is the SYSTEMS tab 

From here we can do a number of things: 

1) Change to a different system—To do this, simply left click on any desired system name 

2) Select systems for report set / script processing—We do this by holding down the CTRL 

Key and selecting your desired systems. 

3) Clear selected systems—We do this by right clicking on the previously “selected” 

systems...then click on “Clear Selections” 


The Navigator Panel - Graphs Tab 

This is the GRAPHS tab 

From here we select graphs via a tree structure - See next page for example... 


The Navigator Panel - Graphs Tab (cont) 

1) From here we select graphs via a tree structure Select the desired + 

2) Then click on the desired graph 

- Here we select a disk space utilization graph from the tree 

Disk graph is 

shown... 


The Navigator Panel - Reports Tab 

From here we select reports via a tree structure - See next page for example... 

This is the REPORTS tab 


The Navigator Panel - Reports Tab (cont) 

1) From here we select reports via a tree structure Select the desired + 

2) Then click on the desired report 

- Here we select a Frame Resource Summary from the tree 

Report is generated... 


Performance Management - Understanding Trend Analysis 

In this section, our goal is to understanding the components of Trend Analysis, including: 

 

 

 

Using Historical Graphs to see where we have been 

Using easy / dynamic linear regression analysis to show critical before and after 

comparisons 

Using Powerful Before / After Analysis to understand how changes to the environment 

impacted the system performance 

By using point and click trending analysis, we can easily understand our historical data. Only 

then, will we be able to show how our changing system environments change our performance 

and capacity requirements. This is the direct input for the budgeting process. With proper 

performance management, there should be no budget surprises. 

Where Have You Been? 

Understanding trends is key to our performance and capacity requirements. To do this efficiently, 

we utilize one of the many historical graphs within the application. Below, we will 

begin this process with understanding the CPU Utilization by Date graph: 

This historical graph provides a view of the CPU over a period of weeks or 

years. You can drill up to view monthly averages. Next, we will look at DASD 

space utilization example. 


Performance Management - Understanding Trend Analysis (cont) 

Understanding trend analysis is key to understanding how changing environments will change 

our performance and capacity requirements. First, we need a clear and concise definition of 

the trend line. It is: The straight line, which best fits the data. 

What Is A Trend? 

A trend line can be drawn with two or more data points. That is, a starting data point and an 

ending data point technically make up a trend. But obviously a trend of only two points is not 

an accurate account of what is really happening on our system. As you do trending analysis, 

your experience plays a big role. You’re going to know your data better than anyone else, so 

you’ll know what a reliable trend is. Saying that however, you do have the ability to make the 

trend any number of data points you desire. On the graph below, note the trend line on the 

top of the DASD data: 

This is a trend line. Notice that it stretches over many data points. (In our example, 

Jan ’10 – Feb ’11) 

On the next page, we will show how by right clicking on the trend line, various 

trending options are available to us. 


Performance Management - Understanding Trend Analysis (cont) 

Starting & Ending A Trend 

By dragging either the starting data point or ending data point, we can move the trend line. 

In the picture below, we dragged the starting data point across the graph until we get to our desired 

starting data point. In this case we start our trend at Jan 2010 

Starting trend—Jan 2010 


Performance Management - Trend Line Options 

Right clicking on the trend line brings up the menu below: 

Right clicking on the trend line, we have various options available to us. They are: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show Trend Stats – show trend stats via a Trend Statistics pop up window 

Split Trend Line – allows trending line to be split into two separate lines. By doing this, we 

get valuable before and after trend comparison analysis. 

Hide Trend Stats – Removes linear regression trend line 

Omit Outliers – Deletes anomalies 

Start Trend Here– Allows us to set the initial data point of our trend. 

Stop Trend Here – Allows us to set the last data point of our trend. 

Copy Bitmap – Puts a copy of the graph image in the clipboard. (Allows cutting & pasting of 

graph in other documents. 

New Window – Splits the current graph into a side by side image 

Email – Allows us to email the graph to a desired user 

Next, we will look at Show Trend Stats 


Performance Management - Trend Stats Window 

Left clicking on the trend line brings up the trend stats window: 

Basic Tab 

Trend Statistics Window 

This window shows everything anyone might ever want to know about the line through the data. 

The information under the ‘Basic’ tab is all very useful in some way or another. The window 

shows where the line starts and ends, how much it changes over time, information about the 

data, etc. The best feature in this window is the one input capable field. You can enter a value 

and press Enter and the program will tell you the date on which the line passes (or passed) 

through the value. 

The information under the ‘Advanced’ tab is probably of no use, unless you want to dig up 

your old Statistics book and check the program’s arithmetic. 

Note that this trend line represents 13 data points. (in our example, 13 Months) 



Basic Tab (cont) 

The Basic Tab information is explained below: 

1 

2 

3 

4 

1 

Shows the initial and final value. In this example, Initial (38.93); Final value (71.71). It shows the 

starting and ending dates (Nov 2004 - Nov 2005). It shows the percentage of change (32.78). Finally, 

(1) shows the number of days measured (365) 

2 

Shows the change per day(.09), per week(.6), per month (2.74), and change per year (32.80) 

3 

4 

Data Projection Window - Upon entering a desired value, PerfNav will indicate when the 

value will be reached (based on the current trend) 

Shows the average value(.55.27), minimum value (38.88), maximum value (72.48), and 

Total (718.5) 


Current Trend – Data Projection Window 

One of the slickest capabilities of this product, is the ability to look at the current 

trend, and make predictions. We all have had management ask us these types of 

questions: 

• “When will my disk drives fill up?” 

• “When will my high priority CPU utilization reach the guideline?” 

• “Are response times getting better or worse?” 

• “When do I need a new CPU?” 

•“How much more is the machine being used today than a year ago?” 

• 

With the Trend Statistics window, we have one very valuable input capable window. 

This window is our Data Projection window. See below: 



Advanced Tab 

The Advanced Tab information is not covered in this manual. For details, you can talk to Mr. 

Joe Camilli. 



Before vs. After Tab - Splitting the Trend Line 

Of all the amazing functionality within Performance Navigator, PerfNav’s Before / After Analysis 

is one of the most powerful aspects of the product. Before vs. After analysis will help you understand 

the impact of changes that were introduced into your IBM i environment. 

An example of changes are 

 

 

 

 

OS Upgrade 

PTFs applied to your system 

Applications Changes 

Performance Tuning Changes 



Before vs. After Tab - Splitting the Trend Line 

Next, one must move the unique trend line to the before and after date ranges. 

Notice the Before section...this section 

shows the metrics for the first trend line 

(Sep 27—Oct 19). 

Next, the After section...this section shows 

the metrics for the second trend line 

(Oct 22 Nov 22). 

The key is the Change section. It shows 

impact of the change. In our example, we 

see a change of –54%. This indicates that 

the new hardware had a positive impact on 

the system. That is, adding more disk arms 

improved disk arm % from a 23% avg to an 

average of 11%! 

This functionality is a powerful tool to have 

in your Systems Admin tool belt. 



Extrapolation Tab 

The extrapolation Tab parameters are explained below: 

This tab work in conjunction with the extrapolate button 

These are parameters that one can set up when predicting future data. 

Extrapolation Weeks - Indicates the number of weeks to show when the extrapolate button is pressed 

Extrapolation Months - Indicates the number of months to show when the extrapolate button is 

pressed 

Adjust Rate%: - Allows one to add an additional growth to the trend line growth 

Extrapolate From: - Allows one to do extrapolate data from either the trend line growth or from the last 

known data value 

Extrapolate - This button works the same as pressing the extrapolate tool bar button 


Performance Management - Joining the Trend Lines 

To re-join our trend line, we simply right click on one of the trend lines, and then select Join 

Trend stats. See below: 


Problem Determination 

In this section, our goal is to understanding the components of problem determination 

including: 

 

 

Understanding how to drill down into the current day graphs 

Understanding how to graph within the reports that have been drilled into 

By using point and click analysis, we can easily understand our current performance data. Only 

then, will we be able to show what is happening on our systems. 

By clicking on Drill / Down, we bring 

up the data behind the graph. 

On the next page, we see the active jobs 


Problem Determination (cont) 

Drilling Down Into The Data 

Upon selecting Drill / Down on a data interval, the following report appears: 

All active jobs are displayed. Note that they can be sorted by CPU%. - See Next Page 



Sorting The Data 

As you are troubleshooting your system problems, it is very common to sort the active jobs by 

category as we hunt for the culprit. In our example we sort by CPU % 

The next step is the key. One must do a secondary sort on seconds. This then gives us all 

jobs that ran for the ENTIRE collection services interval (Notice in the above example, the top 

job was 71.96% but it was only active for 12 seconds! Next, we sort by seconds (Left Click on 

Seconds) NOTE: One can sort on any column 



Graphing the Drilled Down Data 

Upon drilling down, one can graph the data: 


Problem Determination - Filtering The Drilled Down Data 

Sometimes during the troubleshooting process, it is necessary to filter out data so that one can 

get a clearer picture of the problem. This is done via right clicking on the desired field. See 

below: 


Problem Determination - Reset The Filtered Drilled Down Data 

To reset the data: 


Problem Determination - Viewing System Tasks In The Data 

By default, system tasks are not shown. To see them, we must un omit them: 

System Tasks Are Omitted 

(Check Mark Present) 

System Tasks Are Shown 

(Check Mark Not Present) 


Problem Determination - Automated Script Process 

1 Interval Analysis 

Problem determination just got easier as one can now run a problem determination script. 

We do this by right clicking on any time interval and selecting ANALYZE INTERVAL: 

Upon pressing ANALYZE INTERVAL, a problem determination script begins to run. 

NOTE: Graphs will change on the screen and no user intervention is required 

On the next page, we will see various pages from the output:: 



1 Interval Analysis (Cont) 

Lets see some of the pages for the problem determination summary: 

What To Check First: 

This section measures three 

important performance components 

Notice the metrics are measured 

against best practice 

guidelines 

How Is The System 

Performing Now? 

This section measures other 

vital performance components 



1 Interval Analysis (Cont) 

Job Analysis: 

This section indicates the top jobs in regards to CPU usage. It’s important to note that system 

tasks are automatically shown 

NOTE: This analysis is done for the IO & Memory components as well (Not shown in manual) 



Multiple Interval Analysis 

Problem determination for multiple intervals as well 

We do this by showing a trend line and setting it to any time range to be analyzed. 

Upon setting the trend line to a desired time range, one can select ANALYZE RANGE 

NOTE: Graphs will change on the screen and 

no user intervention is required 

On the next page, we will see various pages 

from the output:: 



Multiple Interval Analysis (Cont) 

Lets see some of the pages for the problem determination summary: 

What To Check 

First: 

This section 

measures three important 

performance 

components 

Notice the metrics 

are measured 

against best practice 

guidelines 

How Is The System 

Performing Now? 

This section 

measures other vital 

performance components 



Multiple Interval Analysis (Cont) 

Job Analysis: 

This section indicates the top jobs in regards to CPU ms usage. It’s important to note that system 

tasks are automatically shown 

NOTE: This analysis is done for the IO & Memory components as well (Not shown in manual) 


Capacity Planning 

In this section, our goal is to understanding the components of Trend Analysis, including: 

 

 

Understanding the components of the “What IF” Modeling screen 

Understanding the methodology to properly capacity plan 

In this section, we will learn how to capacity plan our systems for the future. That is, by learning 

the What IF modeling techniques, we can accurately predict future hardware and software 

needs. 

Capacity Planning Rule #1 

Before we begin this chapter, we all have to remember the golden rule of capacity planning. It 

is: 

Capacity Planning is not an exact science … 

But I had a great plan … 

That is, even when the most structured capacity planning processes are put into place, sometimes what 

was predicted doesn’t come true. In other words, the system you predicted you would need may have 

been too big or too small. 

For the new capacity planners out there … Welcome to the crazy world of capacity 

planning, where the gray hair on your head is not going to be the result of a 

bad golf game. Here is an example of what could happen in the real world: 

Management gives you the following task. Ensure our current systems will work 

with the following business factors: 

 

 

Business predicted growth 12% a year 

To support a strategic new application 

You apply the methodology that has worked for years, and the following year, 

your predicted system didn’t quite cut it. Why? You find out that: 

The new application was bigger than expected 

A second application was needed to support the business (that no one told you about) 

The company business grew 25% 

The company bought another company and its related workload 

That’s why capacity planning is not an exact science. As structured as your processes are, sometimes 

you’re modeling criteria changes. That’s why the goal of this chapter is to create a Capacity Planning 

methodology that will make your jobs easier. The goal is being able to build supporting documentation 

for capacity planning projects. If your predictions held true, you’re a genius. If they didn’t, you now 

have supporting documentation to show how you came to your conclusions. 

In the next section, we will start with understanding the What IF Modeling screen. 


Capacity Planning - What If ® Options 

To access the What If screen, click on What If / New: 

The “WHAT IF” Modeling pull-down shows the following options: 

Prior - 

New - 

Recent – 

New w/Asps— 

Recalls the previous modeling session 

to start a new modeling session 

how’s recent WHAT IF session 

State of the Union Script - Starts a System Analysis 

Script 

External Disk Analysis 

- Starts a Disk Analysis 

script 


Capacity Planning - What If Tabs 

The What If Tabs are explained below: 

The “WHAT IF” Modeling tabs are as follows: 

Model Selection 

Room For Growth 

Adjust Workload 

Trend Options 

Server Consolidation 

LPAR 

DASD 

Jobs 

Next, we will explain the WHAT IF Model Selection screen… 



Model Selection Tab 

The Model Selection tab is explained below: 

2 

1 

3 

4 

4 

The “WHAT IF” Model Selection screen shows the following: 

Select Model Pull Down – used during the sizing process 

Model Subset – Pull Down – used to select various models 

3 

Original Configuration – Shows original pertinent system configuration data as well as the capacity 

planning baseline data date range (See Note Below) 

1 

2 

4 

Graph By – graphs can be done by Job Type, Priority or Interactive & other workload 



Room For Growth Tab 

The Room For Growth tab is explained below: 

1 

2 

3 

Note how room for growth works 

within the What IF functionality 

The “WHAT IF” Room For Growth window shows the following: 

1 

System Name - indicates current system we are modeling 

2 

3 

CPW Rating - used in the MODEL SELECTION and the automatic LPAR configuration 

process. 

Annualized Room For Growth Calculator - correlates actual CPU growth for the 

desired RFG period 

In this example, 50% room for growth for three years equates to 14.47% CPU over the period. 



Adjust Workload Tab 

Adjustment Percentages 

The “WHAT IF” Adjust Workload window shows the following: 

Adjustment Percentage tab - This allows one time growth adjustments to the baseline data. 

This is a one time growth adjustment to the baseline data. In this example, Interactive and Batch is being 

grown 25% 

Apply To All - adds the workload to all systems in the What If model 



Adjust Workload Tab 

Time Zone 

The “WHAT IF” Adjust Workload window shows the following: 

Time Zone tab - used to differentiate workloads that are across time zones. Here is the way it 

works: 

Example SYSTEM A and SYSTEM B 

If they are in the time zone………..SYSTEM A and SYSTEM B are set to 0 

If SYSTEM A is in Chicago (central), and SYSTEM B is in NY (eastern), 

Time zone setting would be SYSTEM A (0); SYSTEM B would be +1 

If SYSTEM A is in Chicago (central), and SYSTEM B is in Denver (mountain), 

Time zone setting would be SYSTEM A (0); SYSTEM B would be -1 

If SYSTEM A is in Chicago (central), and SYSTEM B is in LA (pacific), 

Time zone setting would be SYSTEM A (0); SYSTEM B would be –2 



Trend Options Tab 

Use Automatically Calculated Trends 

The Trend Options Tab is where you can grow a given workload by a percentage over ‘x’ period 

of time. There are two options for this percentage. The Automatic percentage is the current 

percentage growth rate of either the CPU utilization or CPW. If you have more than 90 days of 

performance data, this might be a good option. However, if you have less then 90 days or 

want to use a different percentage, the ‘Define Your Own’ tab will allow you to enter a percentage 

for system, interactive and/or batch. Once you make your choice, just enter the number 

of months to project the workload. 

The “WHAT IF” Trend Options screen shows the following: 

System Name - used to identify the current system 

Projection Window – used to predict system growth based on X months 

Trends Options Automatically Calculated Tab – indicates the current trends for the core metrics 

(Systems, Interactive, and Batch jobs). These trends will affect how the model is grown. It’s important 

to note, that these stats will match the historical graphs extrapolation trend line stats. 

See Next Page For An Example 




Use Automatically Calculated Trends (CPU) 

These trends are generated via this historical graph: 

CPU (Graph/CPU/Job Type) 

Setting a What IF CPU Automatic Trend 

How These Trends Are Used: 

These real trend percentages 

allow one to grow the workload 

“x” months 

For example: we can grow 

the What If baseline data and 

see what the workload looks 

like in 24 months 

This is the actual date 

range used…. 




Use Automatically Calculated Trends (CPW) 

These trends are generated via this historical graph: 

CPU (Graph/CPU/CPW) 

Setting a What IF CPU Automatic Trend 


These real trend percentages 



For example: we can grow 

the What If baseline data and 

see what the workload looks 

like in 24 months 

This is the actual date 

range used…. 




Define Your Own 

This tab allows one to ignore automatically calculated trends (CPU or CPW), and allows one to 

grow the workload manually: 


These user defined percentages 



For example: we can grow the 

What If baseline data and see 

what the workload looks like in 

24 months 

NOTE: 

When user defined percentages are used, automatic trends are disabled 




Project The Workload 

Below, we show you how to grow your workload: 

Simply enter any desired number of months: 



Server Consolidation Tab 

This tab is where we can add / subtract workloads from our capacity model. The hardware 

summary is really handy as we ponder hardware upgrades: 

To add a system to What If session, simply highlight and press ADD. 

See Next Page 



Server Consolidation Tab (cont) 

Upon pressing ADD, the new system is in the hardware table: 


Capacity Planning - What If Tabs - Server Consolidation Tab (cont) 

What IF – Server Consolidation –Adding The Same Workload Twice 

To add the same work load twice, highlight the desired workload & press ADD... 

A confirmation message will appear. - Press Yes 

A copy of the BOISE1 workload is added ——> Boise01(2) 



LPAR Tab 

The “WHAT IF” LPAR screen shows the following sub tabs: 

Configure - used to configure an LPAR environment 

Report - used to create a hard copy report of the configured LPAR environment 

Next, we will explain the WHAT IF LPAR / Configure tab… 



LPAR Tab - Configure 

1 

2 

3 4 

5 

The “WHAT IF” LPAR / Configure screen shows the following: 

1 

2 

3 

4 

Partition - used to select a partition. 

Properties - used to enter the number of processors and percent of interactive CPW in each LPAR. 

Consolidated Workload – used to enter the size of the workload in each LPAR. 

Workload Percent– used to enter the amount of interactive and batch for each LPAR. 

Physical Processors - pictorial view of the configured LPAR environment. 

(Note: A giant red ‘X’ indicates that errors exist within the LPAR configuration 

5 

Calculate Default LPAR Configuration – button to automatically calculate a default LPAR 

environment. 

Set to Current Performance – button to automatically calculate the existing LPAR environment. 

Clear – Clears current LPAR configuration (Allows one to re-start the LPAR session) 



LPAR Tab - Report 

The report tab is a spreadsheet equivalent of the LPAR configuration. 

This screen is input into the LVT process and is used for supporting documentation. 

It is important to note, that this page allows changes to the LPAR configuration 



DASD Tab 

1 

5 

6 

2 

7 

3 

4 

The “WHAT IF” DASD screen shows the following: 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

Configuration - used to show original DASD data 

Protection Type - used to identify type of environment (Raid 5 vs. Mirrored vs. Raid 6) 

Graph Type - used to identify type of graph shown (Arm Utilization vs. Disk Service Time) 

SSD Hot Data Factors – This section configures SSD Environments 

Drives – This section configures the input / output devices 

IOAs – This section configures the input / output devices 

Add Drive / Add IOA – Uses IOA type and Drive type pull downs used to add DASD hardware 



DASD Tab - View IOAs 



Jobs Tab 

The “WHAT IF” JOBS screen shows the following: 

Job Name - used to identify the jobs to retrieve. Generic job names can be used, e.g., “Q*” to retrieve 

all jobs beginning with “Q.” 

Retrieve – Button to retrieve job statistics. 

Previous / Next - used to retrieve job information from the prior month or the next month. 

Partition – used to identify the partition on which the job run time is predicted. 


What If - Saving the Model 

After creating a What IF configuration, one must save the file. We do this via 

EDIT / Save What If As. See below: 

Our name is now attached to the model. 


Understanding Performance Navigator Scripts 

Performance Navigator has the amazing to ability to run comprehensive performance reports 

and detailed analysis with just a couple mouse clicks. Different from Report Sets where the 

output is merely a JPG, object, scripts can not only be used to do very detailed analysis on your 

system, but the output is a structured HTML object that can be printed like a word document 

or PDF. The beauty of the script process is that they complete in less than 2 minutes! 

(on a local machine) 

MPG developed a proprietary program language that executes Performance Navigator commands 

and functions. These scripts (programs) reside in MPG’s FACTORY directory and a have a .GpS 

extension. It’s important to note that these objects should not be altered in any way as doing 

so voids MPG’s ability to provide customer support. See script example below: 

In the above example, notice that each script (GPS) has a corresponding HTML object (GPH) 



Performance Navigator scripts are located via the Power Analytics Menu: 



Description of the Scripts 

Management Summary Menu 

Enterprise Performance Overview 

Enterprise Performance Overview 

(With trends) 

Frame Resource Summary 

Entire Enterprise Monthly Performance 

Overview 

Entire Enterprise Monthly Performance 

Overview (with historical trend data) 

Frame Configuration By LPAR (CPU, Disk, & 

Memory) 

Monthly Management Summary Monthly Performance Component Report * 

Weekly Management Summary Weekly Performance Component Report * 

* Note: Both reports have an interactive ( 5250) and non interactive option 



Description of the Scripts (cont) 

Analytics Menu 

Before vs. After 

Before vs. After (Job) 

Disk Analysis 

Memory Analysis 

Job Analysis 

Previous Day Performance Summary 

ODBC Analysis 

IFS Analysis Summary 

Temporary Storage Report 

Solid State Drives (SSD) Analysis 

Service Level Analysis 

Library Change Analysis 

Library / Object Change Analysis 

Analyze Impact of Changes to the System 

Analyze Impact of Changes for Jobs 

Detailed Disk Analysis Report 

(For all Devices) 

Detailed Memory Analysis Report 

(For All Active Pools) 

Detailed Analysis of a Specific Job 

(or a group of jobs) 

Daily Performance Component Report 

Understanding Your ODBC Workload 

Understanding the Integrated File 

System Usage 

Quickly Identifies Temp Storage Problems 

Determines Candidates For SSD 

Ensures Best Practice Guidelines Are Met 

Understand Disk / Library Growth 

Understand Object Growth Within A Library 



Customizing The Default Logo To Your Company Logo 

A neat thing with Performance Navigator Scripts, is one can substitute the Performance 

Navigator logo with your company logo. See below for details 

The default logo name is: cust_logo 

The logo specs are as follows: 

The logo is located: 

C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 15\Factory 

To replace the default logo to your company logo, simply do the following: 

1) Rename cust_logo to cust_logox.jpg 

2) Copy your existing logo to the factory directory 

3) Rename your logo to cust_logo.jpg 

NOTE: The logo will automatically copied to the output directory when a script is executed 



Run Script Window (FILE / RUN SCRIPT) 

Sometimes it’s necessary to change the date criteria before running a script. A common 

example is the monthly management summary report where you are required to run the 

report for a date other than the previous month. 

The run script fields are identified below: 

3 

1 

2 

4 

1 

2 

Identifies the script that is being run 

Press the “browse” button to select 

a desired script 

Identifies the last day of the month. 

Use this field for the management summary 

monthly report. In fact, if you select the last 

day of the month, the beginning of the month 

will automatically be set to the 1st of the month 

Identifies the day of the week. 

3 Use this field for the management summary 

weekly report. Note the weekly report 

requires that the start of the week be SUNDAY 

4 

Identifies the first day of the month. 

Use this field for the management 

summary monthly report. 

5 

5 

Identifies the script output directory 

This directory holds the JPGs and generated 

HTML object. This field should not need to 

be in most cases. That is, if the default environment 

is used, the output directory is the inside 

the Performance Navigator 99 folder where 99 is 

the current release installed. However 

NOTE: For monthly scripts, the start date must be the 1st of the month. 

Failing to do so, creates an environment where “historical” data will not be found 

in the report tables. 



Locating / Printing The Script Output (Non LPAR Licenses) 

Note: This section applies to customers with less than 4 LPARs 

Upon running a script, one must locate the output directory so one can print out the report. The scripts output is 

in the following directory:: 

C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 99\Factory\output 

(Where 99 is the Performance Navigator release number—In the below example, release 13) 

In the above directory, notice there are two type of objects: 

1) JPGs—theses are the pictures of the graphs in the report 

2) The HTML object—This is report you can either print or put on your web site 

For most users, the report is converted into a PDF so it can be easily distributed 

Good Tip: Create a short cut on your desk top to easily access the output directory 



Locating / Printing The Script Output (For LPAR Licenses) 

Note: This section applies to customers with 4 or more LPARs 

As of V15.1, MPG created a menu system to retrieve script output 

Script output can be directed to any location. This done via: 

Report output & EXPO output locations are shown below: 






Script output can retrieved via Navigator Family Performance Metrics Output menu. 

1 

1 

Management Summary Output is generated via: 







2 

2 

EXPO Output is generated via: 







3 

3 

Power Analytics Output is generated via: 







4 

4 

Problem Determination Output is generated via: the Analyze Interval option: 

NOTE: Analyze interval is accessed via any current day graph. One can 

simply right click on any interval and the following menu will appear: 







5 

5 

What If Modeling Output is generated via: 


REPORT SET AUTOMATION (Using Windows Scheduled Tasks) 

From time to time, we get requests on how the report set process can be automated. This is 

done via Windows Scheduled Tasks. To set up a report set in a scheduled task, see the steps 

below” 



NOTE: This documentation has many references 

to V12. If running a different version 

than V12, please change to the appropriate version 

number when applicable. 



Next, we double-click on the “ADD SCHEDULED TASK” icon – the scheduled task wizard will appear… 

Click on NEXT 

Upon pressing NEXT, the scheduled task wizard appears. Select the version of Performance 

Navigator that you are running 

: 

Select PerfNav & Press NEXT 



Next, we name the new task. In the example, we are calling the new task. In this example, we 

name the task: - Performance Navigator 12 - Report Set Automation. Additionally, we 

indicate the frequency of are new scheduled task (DAILY) – Press NEXT 

Next, we select the time and day we want the task to start - – Press NEXT 



Next, we enter needed security information – Press NEXT 

Next, we receive a message that the task has been scheduled. However, we must further 

configure the task. This is done via the advanced properties. Check the “Open advanced 

properties” and press FINISH. 

Ensure this is “check marked” 



Next, we configure (add) the report set commands to the newly created scheduled task. This 

done via the scheduled task properties. The key is the command syntax of two fields: 

Run 

Start In 

The appropriate syntax is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12\PerfNav.exe” 

XXXXXX YYYYYY 

Where XXXXXX = the report set command (PRINT, EMAIL, SAVE) 

Where YYYYYY = the actual report set name (i.e. Daily Reports) 

(Note the location of the quotation marks) 

In the example, we want a started task that will automatically save the report set data to disk. 

The RUN command is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12\PerfNav.exe" 

save daily reports 

The START IN path is as follows: 

"C:\Program Files\Midrange Performance Group\Performance Navigator 12” 

NOTE: If running a different 

version than V12, please change 

to the appropriate version number 

when applicable 



Upon adding the report set specific data with the correct syntax...Press OK. 

The new command is entered… 

Note: Quotes surround the 

fully qualified path name… 

The task is now ready to run… 


SCRIPT AUTOMATION (Using Windows Scheduled Tasks) 

From time to time, we get requests on how scripts can be run automatically. This is done via 

Windows Scheduled Tasks. To set up a script in a scheduled task, see the steps below” 




Understanding The Impact Of Changes 

Whether one makes a simple work management tuning change or is coordinating a major hardware 

upgrade, its vital to understand the impact of the changes to the AS/400. We easily accomplish 

this via MPG’s Power Analytics. On the following pages we will introduce the techniques 

to do effectively understand the impact of changes to your system. We do this with 

MPG’s state of the art Before vs. After analysis 

There are two types of Before vs. After analysis: 

Before vs. After is an overall system analysis 

Measures all core performance components for a designated before / after period, showing: 

(1) Average and peak statistics for CPU, Disk, & Memory components 

(2) Percentage of change difference between the before and after period 

(3) Before vs. after metrics are measured against best practice performance guidelines 

Before vs. After Job Analysis 

Measures all core performance components for a designated Job. Again, we can measure for a 

any specified before / after period. In this analysis, we show: 


(2) Percentage of Change difference between the before and after period 

On the next page, we look at how we set up the Before vs. After comparison parameters 


Understanding The Impact Of Changes (cont) 

Before vs. After Comparison Types of Analysis 

Whether one is doing a Before vs. After over all system analysis or simply doing a Before vs. 

After job analysis, there are two ways to set up the comparison parameters. The choices are: 

1. Multiple Period Comparison 

2. Day vs. Day Comparison 

Let’s first look at how we set up a multiple period analysis. 

Q: What is a multiple period analysis? 

A: At any graph level (Month, Week, or Date), one has the ability to measure any combination 

of months, weeks or days simply by splitting any trend line on a historical 

graph 

Let see an example below where we create the before vs. after periods: 



Creating the Before vs. After Comparison Parameters—Multiple Period 

Next, lets look at a real life example where the customer is doing a multiple period analysis. In 

this example, the customer added disk to their system. 

The goal is to a before vs. after analysis to see if the disk environment had a positive impact to 

the system. Here we show a multiple period comparison at the DATE level: 

In the above example, we simply split the trend line by right clicking 

on a desired location and selecting “split trend line”. 

Upon splitting the trend line, the Before vs. After parms have been set 

On the next page, lets see how we begin the multiple period analysis 



Starting The Before vs. After Multiple Period Analysis 

There are two ways: 

(1) Via The Analytics menu: 

NOTE: 

Before vs After Job should only 

be chosen if one is doing a 

job analysis 

OR 

(2) Via The trend line menu: 

Important Note: 

If the trend line is split, the analysis will NOT require user intervention. However, if one 

selects the menu option without splitting the trend line first, one will be given a set of 

instructions like the ones shown below: 



Creating the Before vs. After Comparison Parameters—DAY vs. DAY 

Let’s now look at how we set up a day vs. day analysis. 

Q: What is a day vs. day analysis? 

A: On any graph at the “time” level, one has the ability to compare performance metrics 

for individual days (i.e. comparing April 1st to May 1st or This Monday vs. last Monday) 

First we must select our Before vs. After FROM Date. This is the “Before Period” 



Creating the Before vs. After Comparison Parameters—DAY vs. DAY 

Next, we must select our Before vs. After AFTER Date. This is the “After Period” 

In our example, we are comparing Aug 18th (Before) vs. Oct 21st (After) 



Setting Day vs. Day Specific Intervals 

When doing a day vs. day comparison, one has the ability to look at a 24 hour day or select a specific 

period of time to analyze: 

For a 24 hour day vs. day analysis, simply select YES at this prompt: 

The Before vs. After analysis will begin processing 

For a specific period vs. day analysis, simply select NO on the above prompt, then press OK 

on this prompt: 

Simply drag the trend line to a any desired period 

to be analyzed 

Finally, press the script button to continue 

processing... 



Starting The Before vs. After Day vs. Day Analysis 

There is only one way: 

(1) Via The Analytics menu: 

NOTE: 

Before vs After Job should only be chosen if one is doing a job analysis 



Before vs. After — Multiple System Comparisons 

There are a lot of creative ways where Multiple System Analysis can be used effectively. 

Two examples are: 

1) Ensuring an HA environment is performing optimally 

Here Is The Value: 

Multiple system comparisons not only ensure the HA environment is preforming at a acceptable 

performance service level, but one can also make sure that each system is tuned within 

best practice guidelines. 

2) Compare similar workloads in a regional environment 


One can answer these questions: 

How does my West Coast system perform compared to my East Coast system? 

Are both systems performing well? 

Are they set up the same? 

—————————————————————————————————————————————- 

Next, lets look at a real life example where the customer has an HA environment...one where 

they routinely “role swap” from their production box to their HA counterpart system 


Before vs After—Measuring HA (Role Swap) Environments 

Choosing The Before vs. After Systems 


they routinely “role swap” from their production box to their HA counterpart system. First, we 

must choose our systems. We do that via the “Navigator” panel 

Upon selecting it, the panel appears on the left side of the user interface: 

On the next page, we choose our Before vs After Systems... 



Choosing The Before vs. After Systems - Select System 1 (Before System) 

To choose system 1 (Before System), simply left click on the system name 

Notice the system is highlighted in gray. 

On the next page, we choose our second system (aka. AFTER System) 



Choosing The Before vs. After Systems - Select System 2 (After System) 

To choose system 2 (After System), simply left click on a second system name 

Notice both systems are highlighted in gray. 

On the next page, we will look at our Before vs After menu options 



There are two types of Multiple System Before vs. After analysis options we can run: 

Before vs. After is an overall system analysis 

Measures all core performance components for a designated before / after period,...comparing 

two systems. On each page of the report, we will show: 


(2) Percentage of change difference between the before and after period 

(3) Before vs. after metrics are measured against best practice performance guidelines 


Measures all core performance components for a designated Job. Again, we can measure for a 

any specified before / after period. In this analysis, we show: 


(2) Percentage of Change difference between the before and after period 

On the next page, we look at how we will show how we begin a multiple system 

Before vs. After analysis 



Multiple System Before vs. After Historical System Overview Analysis 

After we selected our systems, we now can begin the analysis. We do that via the Power Analytics 

menu: 

Upon starting the multiple system analysis, the following message will appear: 

Next, we simply select the YES button. 

Note: If more than two systems are selected, the following error message will appear: 




After indicating we want to do a multiple system analysis, the following message will appear: 

Choosing The Type of Analysis (Historical System Overview) 

Indicate YES if you are comparing individual days (May 1st vs. June 1st) 

An example would be if one was comparing : 

System 1 (Before System) May 1st performance data 

Vs. 

System 2 (After System) June 1st performance data 

Indicate NO if you are doing a historical analysis (May1-31st vs. June 1-30th) 

An example would be if one was comparing : 

System 1 (Before System) May 1st - May 31st performance data 

Vs. 

System 2 (After System) June 1st - June 30th performance data 

On the next page, we will do a multiple period analysis 





Next, we simply drag our trend lines for the period to ne analyzed—See Next Page 




System 1 (Before System) Performance Data Selection 

Next, we simply drag our trend lines for the period to ne analyzed—See Below: 

After selecting our system 1 (Before System) data, we press the script continue button, which is 

located in the left hand corner of the user interface: 

Next, we select our System 2 (After System) performance data to be analyzed—See next page 




After selecting our system 1 (Before System) performance data and pressing the script continue 

button, the following message will appear: 

Just like system 1, we must select our System 2 (After System) performance data to be analyzed. 

Simply drag our trend lines for the period to be analyzed—See Next Page 




System 2 (After System) Performance Data Selection 




The script will begin processing. Next, we look at the output for our multiple system Before vs. 

After analysis See next page 




Understanding The Output 

Upon the pressing NO for a default report title, the script completes. 

Upon finishing, an HTML view window appears. This is an exact duplicate of the actual HTML object 

that was created in the OUTPUT directory. One can merely scroll thru the output or print it: 

Next, lets breakdown the report output. First, we look at the header page: 

Notice it shows the systems we analyzed (In this example: AHIPRD02 vs. R2IHA01) 

Next we look at the Specification Page—see next page 




Understanding The Output—Specification Page 

The Specification Page is a neat way to ensure your production system and HA system are set up 

correctly. In the real life example below, one cam easily see there are set up differences between 

the production system and the HA system. 

Next we look at an example of one of the detailed metrics that are analyzed —see next page 




Understanding The Output—Performance Management Data 

Here we show an example of the output...Looking at disk arm utilization: 

Notice we show numerous things on each page: 

First, the left JPG is our “Before” system 1 being analyzed. The Right JPG is our AFTER system 

(1) Shows that our production system (AHIPRD02) was analyzed for 49 days 

(2) Shows that our HA system (R2IHA01) was analyzed for 25 days 

(3) Shows (A) - Average / Peak disk arm % for Production (AHIPRD02) for the period measured 

(B) - Average / Peak disk arm % for HA (R2IHA01) for the period measured 

(c) - Indicated the percentage of change difference when comparing both systems 

Notice each system is measured against best practice guidelines... 



Multiple System Before vs. After - Day vs. Day Analysis 


Next, we select a day to be analyzed—See Next Page 





Next, we simply select a day to be analyzed - See Below 

Upon selecting the system 1 BEFORE date to be analyzed, press 

to continue processing 

Next, we select our System 2 (After System) performance date to be analyzed—See next page 




After selecting System 1 performance data and pressing the script button, the following screen 

will appear: 

Next, we select a day to be analyzed—See Next Page 





In this real life example, we are comparing: 

Our production system (AHIPRD02) - Wednesday, Feb 16 

 

Vs. 

Our HA system (R2IHA01) - Wednesday March 16th 

Next, we press the 

button to continue processing. 

On the next page, we indicate whether we want to analyze all intervals during the day 




Specifying The Number of Intervals To Analyze 

Upon pressing the script button, the following message will appear: 

Indicate YES if you are want to measure all intervals throughout the day 

Upon pressing YES, the day vs. day analysis will begin processing... 

Indicate NO if you want to specify the intervals to be analyzed. 

To do that, drag the trend line to the desired time range and press the script continue button 

See Below: 

On the next page, we will look at the output 









Notice it shows the systems we analyzed (In this example: AHIPRD02 vs. R2IHA01) 














Here we show an example of the output...Looking at the faulting rate on each system: 



(1) Shows that our production system (AHIPRD02) was analyzed on Wednesday, Feb 16th 

(2) Shows that our HA system (R2IHA01) was analyzed on Wednesday, Mar 16th 

(3) Shows (A) - Average / Peak disk arm % for Production (AHIPRD02) for the period measured 

(B) - Average / Peak disk arm % for HA (R2IHA01) for the period measured 


Next we introduce multiple system Before vs. After Job Analysis—See Next Page 



Before vs. After Job Analysis — Multiple System Comparisons 

There are a lot of creative ways where Multiple System Analysis can be used effectively. 

Two examples are: 

1) Ensuring an HA environment is performing optimally 


Multiple system comparisons not only ensure the HA environment is set up like production, but 

one can analyze key jobs / functional areas to ensure they are running efficiently within the 

HA environment 

2) Compare similar workloads in a regional environment 


One can answer these questions: 

How do my West Coast jobs perform when compared to my East Coast Jobs? 

Are my trends the same? 

—————————————————————————————————————————————- 


they routinely “role swap” from their production box to their HA counterpart system 



Before vs. After Job Analysis—Choosing The Before vs. After Systems 


they routinely “role swap” from their production box to their HA counterpart system. First, we 

must choose our systems. We do that via the “Navigator” panel 

Upon selecting it, the panel appears on the left side of the user interface: 

On the next page, we choose our Before vs After Systems... 




Choosing The Before Vs. After Systems - Select System 1 (Before System) 

To choose system 1 (Before System), simply left click on the system name 

Notice the system is highlighted in gray. 

On the next page, we choose our second system (aka. AFTER System) 




Choosing The Before Vs. After Systems - Select System 2 (After System) 

To choose system 2 (After System), simply left click on a second system name 

Notice both systems are highlighted in gray. 

On the next page, we will look at our Before vs After menu options 



Multiple System Before vs. After Job Analysis 

After we selected our systems, we now can begin the analysis. We do that via the Power Analytics 

menu: 

Upon starting the multiple system analysis, the following message will appear: 

Next, we simply select the YES button. 

Note: If more than two systems are selected, the following error message will appear: 



Multiple System Before vs. After Job Analysis - Choosing The Job 


Enter the desired job name to be analyzed on both systems 

In our example, we will analyze the collection service job: CRTPFRDTA 

On the next page, we will determine what kind of analysis we will do... 





Next, we simply drag our trend lines for the period to ne analyzed—See Next Page 








Next, we select our System 2 (After System) performance data to be analyzed—See next page 













Here we show an example of the output...Looking at sync IOs for job CRTPFRDTA: 


A B C 


(1) Shows that our production system (MPG520P) was analyzed for 51 days 

(2) Shows that our HA system (LABATT) was analyzed for 13 days 

(3) Shows (A) - Average / Peak sync IOs for Production (MPG520P) for the period measured 

(B) - Average / Peak sync IOs for HA (LABATT) for the period measured 




Multiple System Before vs. After Job Analysis - Day vs. Day Analysis 


Next, we simply select a day to be analyzed - See Below 

In this real life example, we are comparing: 

 

 

 

Our production system (MPG520P) - Friday, Mar 25th 

Vs.. 

Our HA system (LABATT)- Friday, April 8th 

Next, we press the button to continue processing. 

On the next page, we indicate whether we want to analyze all intervals during the day 




Specifying The Number of Intervals To Analyze 

Upon pressing the script button, the following message will appear: 

Indicate YES if you are want to measure all intervals throughout the day 

Upon pressing YES, the day vs. day analysis will begin processing... 

Indicate NO if you want to specify the intervals to be analyzed. 

To do that, drag the trend line to the desired time range and press the script continue button 

See Below: 

On the next page, we will look at the output 









Notice in the title: 

One Day Comparison... 

Notice it shows the systems we analyzed (In this example: MPG520P vs. LABATT) 














Here we show an example of the output...Looking at the faulting rate on each system: 


A B C 


(1) Shows that our production system (MPG520P) was analyzed on Wednesday, Feb 16th 

(2) Shows that our HA system (LABATT) was analyzed on Wednesday, Mar 16th 

(3) Shows (A) - Average / Peak Sync IOs for Production (MPG520P) 

(B) - Average / Peak Sync IOs for HA (LABATT) 


Next we introduce multiple system Before vs. After Job Analysis—See Next Page 


EXPO (Executive Performance Overview) 

What is EXPO? 

New functionality to easily see the status core performance components 

for the entire enterprise (For All-LPAR Edition customers - 4 or more LPARs) 

Ability to look at the status of all systems without the requiring the client to be installed on 

the PC (Performance Navigator / Power Navigator) 

Performance Data Levels Measured: 

Today, Yesterday, Last Week, Last Month, & Last Year 

EXPO Main Menu 

Users can access the system performance simply by clicking on any performance data level: 

See Below 

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EXPO User Interface 

Users can access the system performance simply by clicking on any performance data level: 

See Below 

A 

B 

C 

D 

A 

Indicates the performance data level being measured 

B 

Navigation bar to change performance data level views 

C 

Indicates the systems being analyzed 

D 

Indicates the performance components being measured (CPU, Disk, & Memory) 

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EXPO Hyperlinks to Drill Into The Data 

Users can drill into the data simply by clicking on any performance data hyperlink: 

See Below 

Upon clicking on a hyperlink, a drill down graph is shown...See Below: 

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EXPO Top Job Analysis 

Note: This analysis can only be done at the TODAY & YESTERDAY performance level 

During peak workload times, its critical to understand what jobs were running on the system. 

With EXPO, one can easily do this…First we click on any PEAK CPU hyperlink. See Below 

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EXPO Top Job Analysis 

Upon pressing the peak day hyperlink, the following screen is shown. 

Next, we simply click on the See Peak Jobs hyperlink and the top jobs are shown: 

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EXPO Trends 

Users can understand system trend simply by clicking on any performance trend hyperlink: 

See Below 

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EXPO Trends / Library Disk Analysis 

The neat thing about EXPO, is one can easily understand why the disk space utilization is growing 

at an alarming rate. Simply click on See Disk / Library Analysis. See Below 

Upon pressing the 

hyperlink, the disk 

library report is 

shown 

Note: 

See requirements on 

next page. 

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EXPO Trends / Library Disk Analysis Requirements 

The Disk / Library Analysis requires the MPGLOB (Libraries & Objects) file to be present in the 

MPGLIB historical file. By default, this file is populated on Sundays via the PERFNAVDS job (See 

Below). If the file is not present / empty, the user will get the following when pressing the Library 

Disk Analysis hyperlink: 

PERFNAVDS 

DiSk Collection 

This job does a DSPOBJD *ALLUSR/*ALL *ALL OUTPUT(*OUTFILE) OUTFILE(MPGLIB/ 

MPGOBJD). This is scheduled to run once a week at 3:30 am on Sunday. The data in 

MPGOBJD is used by PERFNAVDR (the next time it runs) to collect information on library and 

Note: This job can be substituted for the RTVDSKINFO collection process that is started via the 

GO DISKTASKS menu. (If used, simply put the PERFNAVDS job on hold) 

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EXPO Automation (Setting Up A Windows Task) 

To setup EXPO automation, a dedicated PC is required. Next we utilize the windows task 

Scheduler: 

Below, we see the EXPO set up: 

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Here we set up the frequency to run 

every hour 

This is a user defined parm. 

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Changing EXPO Metric Guidelines 

To change EXPO guidelines: EDIT / Graph Report Options / Service Levels: 

See Next Page 

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Changing EXPO Metric Guidelines 

To change EXPO guidelines: EDIT / Graph Report Options / Service Levels: 

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How To Create / Change EXPO Output Directories 

The default directories are as follows: 

(Via EDIT / Graph Report Options / Output Directories) 

Note: if you want to run EXPO locally on your PC, this default setup works perfectly. The output will automatically 

go in an EPO folder under the above default directory. However, if you want a different / remote 

location (i.e. a shared drive), see the below section 

To change the default 

EXPO directory, simply 

type in a desired path 

name & press ENTER: 

Here we created our own 

EXPO folder on the C: 

drive... 

Upon answering yes, a 

confirmation screen 

appears & the new EXPO 

environment is created… 

(see next page) 

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How To Create EXPO Output Directories 

The new EXPO directoriy look as follows: 

EPO is the folder where ALL objects will reside in: 

The EPO folder will consist of HTML objects as well corresponding JPGs 

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Creating EXPO System Groups 

To run EXPO for “selected systems, one must create an EXPO system group...This is done via ED- 

IT / GROUPS: 

NOTE: 

System Groups are only used 

when running EXPO off the 

Power Analytics / Management 

Summary menu 

1 

2 

When running EXPO from a 

windows system task 

(aka EXPO Automation) the 

systems are selected via the 

preselected systems tab within 

the EXPO report set 

(In other words, the EXPO system 

group is not used during 

report set processing) 

1) Create EXPO Group 

2) Enter each system as an item 

3) Run EXPO...Indicate NO when the following window appears: 

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How To Create An EXPO Environment With All Systems In One Report 

EXAMPLE: Customer managing many frames / LPARs: 

To create this view: 

1) Determine Your EXPO Directory 

Here we are creating a folder called EXPO 

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How To Create An EXPO Environment With All Systems In One Report (cont) 

2) Next, Create An EXPO Group for “selected systems. (EDIT / GROUPS) 

3) At this point we can run the EXPO process manually off the menu: 

OR 

We can execute EXPO via EXPO Automation (Setting Up A Windows Task) 

(See page 250) 

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How To Create An EXPO Environment By A Single Frame (Serial Number) 

EXAMPLE: Providing System Support To Outside Customers: 

Here we provide reports for various customers (Notice different serial #s) 

Cust1 Report 

: 

Cust2 Report 

See Next Page For Details... 

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EXAMPLE: Providing reports to various customers (1 Frame / 1 or 2 systems) 

To create this view: 

1) Determine Your EXPO Directory For EACH Customer 

Here we are creating a folder called EXPO \ Cust1 

New EXPO environment is created: 

NOTE: This process must be done for each customer 

Cust1, Cust2, Cust3…. 

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1) Create A Report Set For Each Customer 

EDIT / REPORT SETS: 

Parameters Tab: 

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2) Next, select your systems 


Preselect Systems Tab: 

Report set 1 (Cust1) 

Report Set 2 (Cust2) 

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3) Next, select the EXPO data collection script 


Scripts Tab: 

Note: Each customer is set up the same way (EXPO.GPS) 

See Next Page… 

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4) At this point we can run the EXPO process manually off the FILE / Production menu: 

OR 

We can execute EXPO via EXPO Automation (Setting Up A Windows Task) 

(See page 250) 

In this example, the started task would be set up like this: 

NOTE: 

Each Customer would need a windows 

task entry. Each one would be 

started: 

Save Cust 1 

Save Cust 2 

Save Cust 3 

And so on... 

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