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Packages & Perspectives

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Abstract

The Performance Data Investigator packages group perspectives (charts and tables) for one collection or purpose.

Content

You are in: IBM i Technology Updates > Performance Tools > Performance on the web > Packages & Perspectives

Search on the main Investigate Data page from each column to find a perspective by database field, name, etc.

See also Functions & Enhancements  

If you have custom packages or perspectives, The way these files are shipped with PDI has changed.  See PML Packages for New Navigator.

Drilldown

Some charts require a selected entry for drilldown.  These are not charts that can be found on the Investigate Data page.  They are always arrived at through drilldown from another perspective.  These are typically the Perspectives with "for" in the name indicating they are a specific metric (CPU, Page Fault, Waits) for a specific subset (job or task, thread or task, pool, user profile, disk, subsystem, server type, job priority).  This could be for more than one pool, job, etc, or it may specify "for one".  Here are some examples:

  • CPU Utilization for Job Current User Profiles
  • Physical Disk I/O for One Job or Task
  • Page Faults for job current user profiles
  • Page Faults for Jobs or Tasks
  • Temporary Storage Allocation/Deallocation for One Job or Task
  • Memory Metrics for One Pool
Before Q2 2024, PDI would allow you to launch to these pages without checking for unresolved variables.  This could result in a skewed and incorrect graph.  With the Q2 2024 HTTP group PTF installed, a message will be shown if no selections are made before attempting to launch to a chart that has required variables.
Chart requested is missing fields for the correct results. Select a data point on the previous chart to provide the required context information.
Selectable Sort Perspectives (Collection Services package only)
See notes for information on memory pools charts and timeline x-axis labels.

Packages & Perspectives
Package Folder or Category Perspective Names (highlights, not all inclusive) Requirements
General Health Indicators
System Resources Health Indicators
  • System Resources Health Indicators is an amalgamation of the 5 topic health indicators perspectives.  This one will only support two (2) simultaneous collections for one query.  The limitation is from Db2 because of the complexity of the query.  The following message will appear in the Navigator log file: [SQL0101] SQL statement too long or complex 
  1. CPU Health Indicators
  2. Disk Health Indicators
  3. Memory Pools Health Indicators
  4. Response Time Health Indicators
  5. Database Health Indicators
Base OS
Collection Services Disk
Disk Reads and Writes Detail contains the following views:
  • IBM i Model DSS 
  • Read/Write Rate and Response Time
  • Read/Write Transfer Size and Rate
  • Installed Disk Hardware
Base OS
Storage Allocation
Memory  Memory Pool Activity Levels
Timeline
  • Timeline Overview for Threads or Tasks
  • Timeline Overview for Jobs or Tasks
  • Timeline Overview for one Thread or Task
Physical System
  • Full System I/O Architecture
  • All 12X Loops
  • All PCIe Gen2
Workload Group
Collection Services Database Files QAPMCONF
Monitors System Monitors 7.2 and later only - Comes with the IBM i base OS
Graph History
  • Summary
  • Detailed
7.3 and later only - Comes with the IBM i base OS
Disk Watcher
NONE
(7.2 and earlier require 5770PT1 Option 1 - Manager Feature)
Performance Explorer
Database
Job Watcher  Storage Allocation
NONE
(7.2 and earlier Require Performance Tools LPP (5770PT1) Option 3 - Job Watcher)
Waits - All Waits by Thread or Task Sorted by Non-idle Waits
All Waits for One Thread or Task->
Interval Details for One Thread or Task->
Wait Buckets

File Level
The collectors assign file levels to the database files based on release/version.
Some perspectives require a certain file level and will not be available to a collection not at the required level.
This table shows what file level a collector at each release will give to each collection:
Release Collection Services Job Watcher Disk Watcher PEX Historical Data
6.1 28 3 1 27 -
7.1 36 6 6 29 -
7.2 42 8 6 30 -
7.3 48 48 48 48 1
7.4 54 54 48 54 2
7.5 60 60 48 60 3
PML Single Source
The perspectives are defined with an XML-derivative called PML. 
Perspectives for all releases are defined with one PML file. Within it, there are file level requirements impacted by the releases and files required.  Because not all perspectives are valid for all collections. An older collection might not include files or fields required for a newer collection. 
When the perspective and collection are not compatible, the Display button is not active.  Also, note that a view for a perspective (single chart or table) may be different depending on the collection that is being displayed. See more information in Single Source Packages

Changes in support from Database
A database enhancement affected the PDI queries in Dec 2018. Changes to Db2 support caused some keywords (INNER and OUTER) to not be allowed in places that were previously acceptable. 
The correlation name is no longer required after a derived table. Some correlation names are still allowed, but INNER and OUTER cannot be allowed.  Both INNER and OUTER are keywords that are valid syntax (that is, for INNER JOIN) at this position in the statement.
  • For PDI, we removed the use of INNER in some of our queries to fix this problem. 
  • Another approach is to change it to "INNER" (with delimiters) or change to some other name.
  • To have the query work on a system that doesn't have the enhancement that caused this change, you might need to leave something at this spot in the query.  Changing OUTER to simply O works on all releases.

    Additional Perspectives (PML):

    Download the latest SSD analyzer PML files for use with Performance Data Investigator:  SSD_analysis.pml__0.xml
    Note: Rename to SSD_analysis.pml before uploading to your IBM i and putting in the PML director.
    This version has several updates from the original.  The last couple are documented here:
    1. In March 2020 to fix the drilldowns from the first two perspectives
    2. In Jan 2020 for the Db2 changes that required the "OUTER" keyword to be changed to "O".
    Description of the perspectives:
      • The SSD Analysis Overview perspective provides a high-level overview of the relative likeliness for SSDs to provide a performance improvement.
      • Disk Read Time depicts average read response time for the selected collection.
      • Disk Read Time by Job and Task is a table showing a subset of the information available for the jobs running during the collection.

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    Document Information

    Modified date:
    18 July 2024

    UID

    ibm11127175