Objective

The Initial Workload Analysis (IWA) provides the customer with complete and detailed documentation of all service classes and resource groups and an assessment if they reached their intended goals, suggestions for improvements, and the expected performance effects of the suggestions.
The documented results are well suited as the basis for discussing further performance decisions.

Approach

During the IWA, we perform the following activities:

• Compile a management summary
• Create technical suggestions to optimize the WLM goals
• Evaluate the usage and application of resource groups and suggest any needed improvements
• Verify the usage of report classes and suggest any necessary improvements
• Appraise the existing optimization potential
• Test the installation with zPrice Manager if desired

With the following information provided, we perform a significant amount of the activities off-site:

• Sysplex summaries
• SMF72 records, preferably from the last 3 accounting months
• SCRT reports belonging to the chosen months
• SMF30 records or SMF70/89 records for a very limited time frame (only if needed)

Our specialists analyze the SMF information with our zPrice Manager and zWorkload Reporter and create comprehensive documentation. We present the results in a two-part presentation: a management summary and a technical review during which we detail our procedural methods and suggestions. After the implementation, we perform two subsequent measurements in order to recommend more adjustments if needed.