C\TREK™

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The C\TREK™ expert CICS performance tuner™ is a tool used by mainframe system programmers to optimize CICS system performance in a fraction of the time required when using more traditional CICS monitors. 

By automating the analysis of vast amounts of CICS data, isolating performance problems and making expert recommendations for corrective action, it enables IBM data centers to save valuable staff time, delay system upgrades, and transition to a more proactive approach to CICS system performance management.

• A consultant time for 2 days who will install C\TREK™
• C\TREK™ performance education for you and your staff
• Tune your CICS environment using C\TREK™
• 30 days complimentary 

• Recover wasted system resources (CPU cycles, disk space, virtual and real storage)
• Avoid or delay expensive mainframe system capacity upgrades
• Optimize mainframe resources with less experienced system programmers
• Improve business application response time
• Reduce critical business application downtime
• Orient and train new staff on the entire CICS operating environment
• Provide application programmers with a useful tool for optimizing system software performance
• Transition from a reactive break/fix mode to a more proactive performance management discipline

• Automates analysis of large amounts of CICS operating data to identify performance problems
• Summarizes and highlights problem areas and provides specific tuning recommendations
• Provides complete coverage of the entire CICS environment
• Covers analysis and tuning of SIT parameters, VSAM files, LSR pools, CICS and z/OS control blocks, Temporary Storage, DB2 and Abend handling
• Provides information about external areas that affect CICS performance such as CPU utilization, paging, Task I/O Table, Auxiliary Storage Manager, and address space priorities and VTAM information
• Breaks CPU utilization down by CICS, DB2, TCP/IP, WebSphere, MQSeries, and operating system
• Provides direct access to CICS areas and control blocks to facilitate problem analysis
• Unmatched technical support from CICS performance tuning experts

Parameter Definition Tuning : 

• C\TREK™ reviews all the parameters that have been specified for the system and resources such as transaction and program definitions. 
• C\TREK™ analyzes the System Initialization Table parameters and identifies those parameters that should be reviewed to improve performance. 
• Reviews the LE options parameters (CEECOPT) and Java definitions and identifies those that require attention

Buffer Tuning: 

• C\TREK™ improves transaction response times by fine tuning look-aside hit ratios in both NSR and LSR files. It reviews the string allocation by pool and makes recommendations as to how many should be allocated.
• Checks for NSR files that don’t have the proper BUFNI allocations. It also includes a series of transactions that help identify poor resource utilization such as buffer fragmentation, buffer monopolization by a particular file, or incorrect pool initialization. 
• C\TREK™ is the only tool that identifies how many buffers within an LSR pool are allocated to each file. This makes it easy to identify when a particular file is monopolizing a particular buffer in a pool

VSAM File Tuning:

• C\TREK™ makes the tuning of VSAM files easy by identifying problem areas that would require a significant amount of system programmer time using other methods, such as traditional monitors. 
• In addition to assisting in the buffer tuning for NSR and LSR files, C\TREK™ provides recommendations on tuning:
• Cluster Definition parameters to ensure that the proper parameters are used, sufficient/correct free space is allocated, the data and index CISZ are optimum, the correct CA size has been  defined, the file is not over/under allocated, and identifies files that should be reorganized. 
• Recommendations for the file cluster definition are provided 

DB2 Tuning:

• C\TREK™ provides recommendations and information on how the CICS-DB2 connection may be improved by :
•  Providing statistics that help determine the number of threads allocated (protected and   
•  unprotected) Reconciliation of threads assigned to the pool DB2 Entries and Command versus the connection thread limit  SIT MAXOPENTCBS parameter and the reuse of threads  

Abend Handling : 

• C\TREK™ abend handler captures information regarding typical ASRA (program check abends) but more importantly, it captures information about storage violations and short on storage (SOS) conditions. 
• With the initial information captured regarding the storage violation, the user can quickly determine the active transactions, the damaged area, and the program and task involved. 
• In some cases, this avoids having to analyze a system dump. In the case of SOS conditions, the abend handler can identify the tasks involved, the amount of storage allocated and used by task, and the amount of storage requested that caused the SOS condition. 

Other Tuning Areas: 

• There are other areas within CICS that can affect resource use by CICS TS such as storage below the line. C\TREK™ has a function to review up to 180 different potential problems that could affect performance of the CICS system