HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
HP GlancePlus for MPE/iX: The Next Generation by Mel Eelkema Software Technology Division The "Next Generation" of HP GlancePlus offers significant new functionality, added configurability, and greater ease of use than ever before. It represents the next step in the ongoing enhancement of the Hewlett-Packard online performance diagnostic tool. As with each previous version, its usefulness in real business situations has been guaranteed by customer prototyping in production environments. Customers who have enjoyed the near identical user interface of the HP GlancePlus products on both MPE V and MPE XL systems saw added features and commands in GlancePlus/V not available then on HP GlancePlus. With this version, you will see most of those additional HP GlancePlus/V features plus many new ones in HP GlancePlus for MPE/iX. NEW FUNCTIONALITY AT A GLANCE The following information describes the new functionality now available with HP GlancePlus for MPE/iX. Expert Advisor An expert system is now available to help you analyze your system's performance. It uses a configurable set of rules to identify bottlenecks, tell you the reasons they were identified, and make suggestions to improve performance. It assists you in finding and solving performance problems by proceeding from the global resource issues to the processes using those resources. A new OVERVIEW command displays an expert summary of resource usage levels over time so that current performance can be viewed in proper perspective. Highlighting of key performance fields that exceed configurable thresholds further enhances your expertise by drawing attention to possible problems. Workload Screen The new Workload Screen enables a view of system performance by user defined groups of programs and user logons called applications. Now you can see the resource usage and response time of applications such as payroll and order entry. Guided analysis is provided with a single keystroke to display performance information for the processes that comprise the most active application. Global Screen Enhancements The Global Screen now includes numbers to the right of the global bars representing the current, average, and high value for CPU, disc accesses, and memory. The CPU bar may be configured to represent CPU by queue or CPU by interactive and batch usage. The Memory bar has also been enhanced to allow a choice of displaying either memory contents or fault rates. For multiprocessor systems, the number of processors is listed in the title line. New Commands With a single specification you may now change the queue of all processes within a job or session. This eliminates the problem of changing the queue of a process in a job only to have that process end and the next program begin at the previous priority. The system manager may also allow a user with sufficient capability to change the queue of a system process. Two new commands, > and <, make it easier to go where you wish with a single keystroke in HP GlancePlus. The > command means to go to the next logical screen. The > commands takes you from the Workload screen to the Filter screen to analyze the application with the highest CPU usage. From the Global, CPU, or Filter screen, > displays information about the process using the most CPU. From the Disc screen it displays information about the process doing the most disc accesses. The < command takes you back to the previous screen. Additional Enhancements The HELP subsystem has been enhanced to give you a quick overview of the available commands in HP GlancePlus or to get screen sensitive help. As always, a comprehensive indexed general help is available. The clock cycle metric on the memory screen has been enhanced to more precisely identify memory bottlenecks. This metric now represents the number of clock cycles per hour computed from the time HP GlancePlus started running. A change in the "Current Wait Reason" field in the Process Screen facilitates response time analysis. Instead of the current wait reason, GlancePlus now reports the major wait reason and its percentage of the last interval. CONFIGURABILITY AND EASE OF USE A new file called GLANCNFG keys the increased customization in GlancePlus. It contains a powerful set of default rules for the expert system as well as settings for many of the options available. The system manager has the flexibility to modify these settings and the power to restrict particular features of GlancePlus to certain types of users. Applications may also be defined in this file. Changing configuration values with the V command has become much quicker and easier. It is now keyword driven instead of question and answer. You key in only the number of characters needed to make the keyword and value unique. Further, you will see many new items in the values display that allow you to customize GlancePlus to meet your needs. The FILTER, or F command, allows you to select groups of programs and users you would like to display. That dialogue has been changed to the same quick and easy interaction as the V command described above. Further, you can predefine groups of programs and users for display in the Workload Screen and select any one or more of them with the FILTER command. These definitions may be specified in the GLANCNFG file or will integrate the HP LaserRX/MPE PARM file definitions for customers who own both products. The FILTER command also remembers the last definition, and prompts you with that as the default. HP GlancePlus now remembers user input in order to decrease keystrokes. It saves the last file name input through the U command (list Users of a file) and prompts you with that as the default. It also remembers the last process, job, and session number you entered. So looking at the last process you displayed requires only a "P" and a carriage return. It becomes very quick to jump from the job screen to the process screen and back. In response to customer requests, process information such as files, family tree, or stack marker trace may be set to display on demand or continuously through the PROCKEYS keyword in the VALUES command. If you wish to track serial file access progress by looking at the file record pointer, you may set the display to "continuous" to get an update at every interval. Or you may set the display to "on demand" and press the "Display Files" function key for a scrolling update. This greatly facilitates comparing successive record pointer values. The file display may also be configured through the VALUES command to be SIMPLE or DETAILED. A SIMPLE display shows the file name and percentage comparison of record pointer to end of file. The DETAILED display shows the more extensive information of previous releases plus much of the AOPTION and FOPTION information used to FOPEN the file. This information is very handy for determining whether the file was opened for read, write, or update access, whether it was specified as exclusive or shared, whether it was opened with locking or not, and other information. Other features further contribute to ease of use. In the VALUES command, keywords are color coded if the terminal or PC has color capability. The Values display now shows you the system identification and series number. The job, session, and filter screens report the number of processes that belong to that group. For HP GlancePlus/V users, the I command (Define Interval or Timer) can be used interchangeably with the T command in the HP GlancePlus interface.