Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Colin Paice]

Phil,

I used to use

*C08 - CPU usage referred attributionUsage*
*Use this report to see attribution of CPU usage measured in system modules
referred back to the points of invocation in application module.*

But this only did it for system code.  I guess it will not work for non
system code.
Colin

On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 19:37, Phil Smith III  wrote:

> Colin Paice wrote about using APA successfully.
>
>
>
> I sure wasn't meaning to diss APA-it did help. I just remember finding that
> it wasn't granular enough for us. We have an underlying toolkit that has
> many layers, so it tends to jump around a lot in there, doing not a lot in
> each layer. That made it hard to narrow down, because it was mostly "Yeah,
> it's in this module", which didn't help that much since there were lots of
> functions in each module. (Hint: not how I would have written it!)
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> ...phsiii
>
>
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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[david rintoul]

I believe its an enhanced version of inspect from omegamon z/os. It
monitors where the cpu is spending its time in the code by sampling the
restart psu for AS you are monitoring. It was created as a bet by an old
mate of mine, a few moons ago.


Virus-free.
www.avast.com

<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 3:05 AM Colin Paice  wrote:

> I used it about 10 years ago.  We only looked at hot hot spots. Small hot
> spots close to the background level, could change from day to day depending
> on other usage.  For example are the instructions/data cached in the local
> processor?  Changing the amount of optimization of the C code made a big
> difference.  Sometimes highly optimised code was slower than medium
> optimised, because it optimised the whole program, whereas the hot code was
> only about 5% of the total.  Of course upgrade the processor, and
> everything can change, bigger cache, bigger page size, TLB etc.
>
> I remember going to a customer to resolve a performance problem who was
> going live in under 2 weeks.  Using APA...
> 1)  The top usage in the top transaction was 80% in  "printf".   They still
> had debug code running.
> 2)  Rather than use a variable in a dynamic SQL statement  such as "select
> from table where user=:userid", they had "select from table where
> user='COLIN'", and "select from table where user='PAICE', so each of these
> statements were unique, and could not be cached.
> APA showed me these in the first hour (it made me look great). Once fixed,
> the CPU dropped from 4 engines down to 1 engine for the same workload.
> When I said they were going live in under 2 weeks; every one used the
> password "qw", and I could logon to the super user using qw!
>
> Colin
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 16:56, Phil Smith III  wrote:
>
> > Colin Paice wrote:
> >
> > >I dont think it matters which machine you run on, you just run for a
> > longer
> >
> > >time, and get more samples that way.
> >
> >
> >
> > There was, IIRC, also a maximum time for the sampling. What we wound up
> > with
> > was insufficient; as I noted, it was a while ago. Perhaps we missed
> > something.
> >
> >
> > --
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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Phil Smith III]

Colin Paice wrote about using APA successfully.

 

I sure wasn't meaning to diss APA-it did help. I just remember finding that
it wasn't granular enough for us. We have an underlying toolkit that has
many layers, so it tends to jump around a lot in there, doing not a lot in
each layer. That made it hard to narrow down, because it was mostly "Yeah,
it's in this module", which didn't help that much since there were lots of
functions in each module. (Hint: not how I would have written it!)

 

Thanks,

...phsiii 


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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Colin Paice]

I used it about 10 years ago.  We only looked at hot hot spots. Small hot
spots close to the background level, could change from day to day depending
on other usage.  For example are the instructions/data cached in the local
processor?  Changing the amount of optimization of the C code made a big
difference.  Sometimes highly optimised code was slower than medium
optimised, because it optimised the whole program, whereas the hot code was
only about 5% of the total.  Of course upgrade the processor, and
everything can change, bigger cache, bigger page size, TLB etc.

I remember going to a customer to resolve a performance problem who was
going live in under 2 weeks.  Using APA...
1)  The top usage in the top transaction was 80% in  "printf".   They still
had debug code running.
2)  Rather than use a variable in a dynamic SQL statement  such as "select
from table where user=:userid", they had "select from table where
user='COLIN'", and "select from table where user='PAICE', so each of these
statements were unique, and could not be cached.
APA showed me these in the first hour (it made me look great). Once fixed,
the CPU dropped from 4 engines down to 1 engine for the same workload.
When I said they were going live in under 2 weeks; every one used the
password "qw", and I could logon to the super user using qw!

Colin





On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 16:56, Phil Smith III  wrote:

> Colin Paice wrote:
>
> >I dont think it matters which machine you run on, you just run for a
> longer
>
> >time, and get more samples that way.
>
>
>
> There was, IIRC, also a maximum time for the sampling. What we wound up
> with
> was insufficient; as I noted, it was a while ago. Perhaps we missed
> something.
>
>
> --
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Phil Smith III]

Colin Paice wrote:

>I dont think it matters which machine you run on, you just run for a longer

>time, and get more samples that way.

 

There was, IIRC, also a maximum time for the sampling. What we wound up with
was insufficient; as I noted, it was a while ago. Perhaps we missed
something.


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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Colin Paice]

I dont think it matters which machine you run on, you just run for a longer
time, and get more samples that way.  I would suggest you run it on the
same machine as production so you get true samples.  The hardware can
change, for example  the MVCL instruction used to be slow on one machine,
and was fixed on the next generation.

You can use APA ( and Strobe) for two purposes

   1. Where is the CPU used?A hot spot could be caused by a very
   expensive operation being done frequently. Or could be very efficient code
   being called millions of times.  One lesson is to stop doing expensive
   calls, and to cache data from expensive calls.  ( I remember a CICS
   transaction that did the same DB2 query 1000 times! ... each program
   checked the status of a flag in a table.  They did the query once, and set
   a bit...  CPU usage disappeared.  APA showed this)
   2. Where is the elapsed time spent.   This could be disk I/O, Database
   waits/contention, CF etc

Colin

On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 21:37, Phil Smith III  wrote:

> This might be obvious, but if you can, you generally want to run APA on the
> slowest system you own, because modern machines are too bloody fast: it can
> have trouble identifying hotspots because it only goes to (I think) 100K
> samples per second, and that's not enough. At least, that's what ISTR from
> using it a few years ago-on then-current machines. Unless APA has increased
> that granularity, this problem can only have gotten worse.
>
>
>
> I've heard of people considering a zPDT just so they could have a SLOWER
> system to test on-when was the last time you heard that?
>
>
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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Radoslaw Skorupka]

As you noticed APA is separate product.
Yes, but it can be a part of software bundle named Application Delivery 
Foundation.


Few remarks:
1. Who installed the system? Is there any documentation? It should 
answer your question.
2. ServerPac materials describe content of the package - is there APA in 
any form?

3. Try to look for CAZ.** datasets.
4. Last, but it should be first: are you licensed to APA? Assuming yes 
you can have it or not. If not, it can be downloaded and installed.



--
Radoslaw Skorupka
(looking for new job)
Lodz, Poland





W dniu 12.04.2021 o 22:31, Lizette Koehler pisze:

Thank you everyone. This is strictly a z/OS environment for my question

Since I do not see any SCAZ* datasets for any SMP/e environment, it probably 
means I have never ordered it

That helps a lot

Lizette



-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of 
Colin Paice
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2021 9:25 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

It used to be a separately orderable product.  It was developed by another 
company, and badged by IBM.

it provides the same functions as Strobe.

For example

1. Hot spots...  in code Module/csect down to 64 bytes  granularity
2. Which DB2 queries are taking most elapsed time, and CPU time
3. Which MQ queues are used


All good stuff.   I used it when looking at performance problems.

Colin


On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 17:16, Lizette Koehler 
wrote:


List -



Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?



Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?



I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a
separate order or included in z/OS



Thanks



Lizette




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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Phil Smith III]

This might be obvious, but if you can, you generally want to run APA on the
slowest system you own, because modern machines are too bloody fast: it can
have trouble identifying hotspots because it only goes to (I think) 100K
samples per second, and that's not enough. At least, that's what ISTR from
using it a few years ago-on then-current machines. Unless APA has increased
that granularity, this problem can only have gotten worse.

 

I've heard of people considering a zPDT just so they could have a SLOWER
system to test on-when was the last time you heard that?


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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Dave Jousma]

Yea, its not a freebie either.  charged just like fault analyzer, File manager, 
debug.as Jerry mentioned it is bundled, which is what we have done.

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Lizette Koehler]

Thank you everyone. This is strictly a z/OS environment for my question

Since I do not see any SCAZ* datasets for any SMP/e environment, it probably 
means I have never ordered it

That helps a lot

Lizette



-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of 
Colin Paice
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2021 9:25 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

It used to be a separately orderable product.  It was developed by another 
company, and badged by IBM.

it provides the same functions as Strobe.

For example

   1. Hot spots...  in code Module/csect down to 64 bytes  granularity
   2. Which DB2 queries are taking most elapsed time, and CPU time
   3. Which MQ queues are used


All good stuff.   I used it when looking at performance problems.

Colin


On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 17:16, Lizette Koehler 
wrote:

> List -
>
>
>
> Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?
>
>
>
> Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?
>
>
>
> I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a 
> separate order or included in z/OS
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Lizette
>
>
>
>
> --
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send 
> email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Pierre Fichaud]

Lizette, APA does not do iSeries. It is strictly z/OS. Pierre.

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Itschak Mugzach]

Separately priced. And yes, it is much like stone.

ITschak

בתאריך יום ב׳, 12 באפר׳ 2021 ב-19:16 מאת Lizette Koehler <
stars...@mindspring.com>:

> List -
>
>
>
> Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?
>
>
>
> Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?
>
>
>
> I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a separate
> order or included in z/OS
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Lizette
>
>
>
>
> --
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>
-- 

*| **Itschak Mugzach | Director | SecuriTeam Software **|** IronSphere
Platform* *|* *Information Security Continuous Monitoring for Z/OS, zLinux
and IBM I **|  *

*|* *Email**: i_mugz...@securiteam.co.il **|* *Mob**: +972 522 986404 **|*
*Skype**: ItschakMugzach **|* *Web**: www.Securiteam.co.il  **|*

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Colin Paice]

It used to be a separately orderable product.  It was developed by another
company, and badged by IBM.

it provides the same functions as Strobe.

For example

   1. Hot spots...  in code Module/csect down to 64 bytes  granularity
   2. Which DB2 queries are taking most elapsed time, and CPU time
   3. Which MQ queues are used


All good stuff.   I used it when looking at performance problems.

Colin


On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 at 17:16, Lizette Koehler 
wrote:

> List -
>
>
>
> Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?
>
>
>
> Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?
>
>
>
> I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a separate
> order or included in z/OS
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Lizette
>
>
>
>
> --
> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
>

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Re: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Edgington, Jerry]

Lizette,

IBM APA doesn't come with z/OS. It is an addon product and part of the IBM PD 
Tools or ADFz.  Yes, it is 'similar' to Strobe and has both ISPF and IDE 
interface. 

Jerry Edgington

-Original Message-
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List  On Behalf Of 
Lizette Koehler
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2021 12:17 PM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

This message was sent from an external source outside of Western & Southern's 
network. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender 
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List -

 

Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?

 

Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?

 

I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a separate order 
or included in z/OS

 

Thanks 

 

Lizette

 


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Help with APA - Application Performance Analyzer

[Lizette Koehler]

List -

 

Does anyone know if the APA comes with z/OS ?  If so what versions of z/OS?

 

Is it similar to iSTROBE for analyzing application tasks?

 

I am reading the manuals, but I just wanted to see if it was a separate
order or included in z/OS

 

Thanks 

 

Lizette

 


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