By James Overman Computer Systems Division
The Performance Collection Software (PCS/iX) product (also
known as SCOPE/iX) HP B1794B for MPE/iX has been enhanced to support
a larger numbers of disks, CPU's, and other system resources with
the version B.13.53.00 shipped with MPE/iX 7.0 Express 1 as patch
SCOLXR6. This PCS/iX version produces new format Raw Logfiles (version
D) and also modifies the format of Extracted RX Logfiles that are
analyzed by the PerfView products. HP Perfview and Measureware products are now
known as HP Vantage Point Performance Manager and Agent, respectively.
This new version of PCS/iX supports the increased
HP e3000 MPE/iX limits of 511 disks, 14 processors, and 16Gbyte
memory sizes. Also, the data fields have been changed to correctly
process the much larger possible sizes of disk storage, number of
pins, and other system resources that have grown along with the
more powerful HP e3000s. The expanded and modified data items required
the update of the MeasureWare Agent portion of the HP PerfView software
[HP Vantage Point Performance AGENT]. Older versions of HP MeasureWare
and the obsolete HP LaserRX software will not process the new Extracted
RX logfiles.
New releases of HP MeasureWare Agent that understand
the new MPE/iX 7.0 Extracted RX logfiles are available. Those releases
should be acquired by customers through the usual HP Support Channels.
Generally, a Patch for your platform may be requested from HP in
the normal manner (download from the IT Resource Center, or request
from the Response Center). As of the writing of this article, the
HP Vantage Point Performance products have a problem with the expanded
disk information but do process the other extracted data. The difficulty
is being corrected and new releases of the Monitor and the Agent
are expected by the end of July 2001.
Immediately after updating or installing
PCS/iX B.13.53.00, it will be necessary to use the UTILITY.SCOPE.SYS
program to CONVERT the previous Raw Logfile formats (B or C) to the
new D version, if not previously converted. This one-time conversion
should require only a few minutes for even the largest Raw Logfiles.
This conversion step must be performed prior to attempting to restart
the SCOPEJOB that collects the PCS/iX data.
The new format extracted
RX logfiles are created by the EXTRACT.SCOPE.SYS program. Old extracted
RX logfiles may be used to create new RX files, but old RX log files
may not have data appended nor updated. Note that when extracting
a period file (month, week, year), the prior period file is examined
and updated if needed, before the current period file is addressed.
The format version of a logfile may be determined by running UTILITY.SCOPE.SYS
and doing a LOG command and then giving the RX logfile name. The
program will display on the first line the Version. D is the new
format, B or C are the old formats.
The extracted logfiles are still
limited to 65535 records. The new disk log records will cause more
records to be written per global data collection interval and so
users may reach the End-of-file condition more frequently during
Extracts. The work-around is to extract shorter intervals, reduce
the amount of data being extracted by selecting fewer record types,
or using summarization rather than detail records.
Business BASIC and the TurboIMAGE/iX Limits Increase