Hidden Value March 1998

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Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP 3000 systems. Get a free NewsWire HP 3000 Always Online cap – submit your MPE tip directly to us here at the NewsWire. Send your tips to rseybold@zilker.net, or fax them to 512-657-3264.

Compiled by John Burke

I updated MPE/iX from 5.0 to 5.5 PowerPatch 4 over the weekend on our 937LX with 128Mb memory. The process went fairly well and took about 6 hours. I was a bit displeased, however, to see my batch jobs taking up to 42 percent longer to complete, with the average being about 30 percent. Yikes! I expected to take a performance hit, but is this normal?

HP’s James Overman replies:
No, it is not normal. There are several possible causes of a general performance slowdown that you might check for on your system.

1. Disk space use and allocation may have changed. If your disks were fragmented by the upgrade or your free space has all wound up on one drive or all the new files went to the same drive, you will have a problem. Check your disk usage and access rates via Glance/iX or other performance tool. Do a DISCFREE A, B and C. Defrag your disks. Maybe even RELOAD, if possible.

2. Verify that the SL is still OCT’ed. The SL.PUB.SYS should be large (EOF over 40000, I think; ours is 125,000 records).

3. If only specific jobs are slower, check out what they are doing. Do they use more CPU or just elapsed time? Are they KSAM oriented? IMAGE? Allbase?

4. Check your UDCs. I’ve seen cases where UDC files have been appended such that the same UDC file was searched many times for each command. Also, cases where important UDCs (System wide file equates, etc.) were lost.

5. Check for CM program allocation (We do ours in a JOB started from the
SYSSTART file). Check that any OCT’d programs were not upgraded (FOS or third party). Had you “switched” QUERY.PUB.SYS for the NM version, for example?

6. Had you customized your job queue priorities? Perhaps by shortening the quantum? Do a SHOWQ;STATUS to check the queue definitions.

Generally my testing has found that each version of the OS is a bit faster than the old, once such disk and other factors are eliminated. Of course, these factors are mostly for jobs. Large numbers of sessions may experience the “knee” problem, or the “out of memory causes swapping” problem, but that does not seem to be your problem.

I have encountered a problem I’m unable to solve with my limited tools and knowledge. I would like to be able to move database files from one machine to another. Our tape drives are not compatible, and there are no other common device types. We have NS, if this helps.

Klaus Franke and Eric Kundl reply:
You can DSCOPY them if you specify the file-code. First establish a dsline to the other system:
:DSLINE OTHER;LOGON=user/pass.account/ pass,group/pass
Then DSCOPY the root file:
:DSCOPY BASE to ,OTHER;FCODE=-400
After this, copy all the datasets:
:DSCOPY BASE?? to ,OTHER;FCODE=-401

OTHER is the name of your other system; BASE is the name of your database. If you happen to be using Omnidex indexing with the later version that uses privileged flat files rather than datasets, you will have to move them also (or reindex after the move). They have a filecode of -410 and -411 if I remember correctly. Do a LISTF database??,3 to see the file code...)

I’m trying to keep our patches straight. What is the name of the file that contains a listing of the patches that have been applied to our system?

You can find the listing in the file HPSWINFO.PUB.SYS

We are about to implement our first jumbo dataset. Is there anything special we should be aware of?

Paul Christidis and Richard Holloway reply:
Jumbo datasets live in the Posix file space. Do your homework on how your backup package handles jumbo datasets in particular and Posix file space files in general.

Why don’t I have a subsys tape with Express 4? Now I’m confused about what an Express Release is.

HP’s Jon Cohen replies in a series of questions and answers:
An Express Release is the coordinated development and release of a PowerPatch and subsys tape containing new/updated HP products. An Express Release gets its name from the PowerPatch that is being developed for release with the Express Release.

Is it normal for me to get a PowerPatch 4 with an Express 3 subsys tape?

Yes, that is normal. The last time HP released a subsys tape was at Express Release 3. The latest PowerPatch is 4. So, you’d get the latest PowerPatch (4) and the latest subsys from the last Express Release (3).

Is there an Express Release 4 and will it fix my Year 2000 problems?

No. HP didn’t release a coordinated subsys tape with PowerPatch 4, therefore there is no Express Release 4. You may then correctly deduce that if Express 4 doesn’t exist, it can’t fix anything.

Okay wise guy, so do I need PowerPatch 4 and the subsys tape from Express Release 3 to fix my Year 2000 problems?

No. The Year 2000 fixes were rolled into PowerPatch 4, and the Express 3 subsys didn’t contain Year 2000 fixes.

Why was there no Express Release 4?

At HP World, HP promised that they’d release the Year 2000 fixes in Express Release 4 (the coordinated release of PowerPatch 4 and a subsys tape). HP realized that the Year 2000 problems could be fixed by just patches and they had no need to release a coordinated subsys tape. No coordinated subsys means no Express Release; therefore HP just shipped PowerPatch 4 to fix the Year 2000 problems.




		Click here for TSG sponsor message

		Hidden Value details commands and procedures in MPE that can improve your productivity with HP 3000 systems. Get a free NewsWire HP 3000 Always Online cap – submit your MPE tip directly to us here at the NewsWire. Send your tips to rseybold@zilker.net, or fax them to 512-657-3264. Compiled by John Burke I updated MPE/iX from 5.0 to 5.5 PowerPatch 4 over the weekend on our 937LX with 128Mb memory. The process went fairly well and took about 6 hours. I was a bit displeased, however, to see my batch jobs taking up to 42 percent longer to complete, with the average being about 30 percent. Yikes! I expected to take a performance hit, but is this normal? HP’s James Overman replies: No, it is not normal. There are several possible causes of a general performance slowdown that you might check for on your system. 1. Disk space use and allocation may have changed. If your disks were fragmented by the upgrade or your free space has all wound up on one drive or all the new files went to the same drive, you will have a problem. Check your disk usage and access rates via Glance/iX or other performance tool. Do a DISCFREE A, B and C. Defrag your disks. Maybe even RELOAD, if possible. 2. Verify that the SL is still OCT’ed. The SL.PUB.SYS should be large (EOF over 40000, I think; ours is 125,000 records). 3. If only specific jobs are slower, check out what they are doing. Do they use more CPU or just elapsed time? Are they KSAM oriented? IMAGE? Allbase? 4. Check your UDCs. I’ve seen cases where UDC files have been appended such that the same UDC file was searched many times for each command. Also, cases where important UDCs (System wide file equates, etc.) were lost. 5. Check for CM program allocation (We do ours in a JOB started from the SYSSTART file). Check that any OCT’d programs were not upgraded (FOS or third party). Had you “switched” QUERY.PUB.SYS for the NM version, for example? 6. Had you customized your job queue priorities? Perhaps by shortening the quantum? Do a SHOWQ;STATUS to check the queue definitions. Generally my testing has found that each version of the OS is a bit faster than the old, once such disk and other factors are eliminated. Of course, these factors are mostly for jobs. Large numbers of sessions may experience the “knee” problem, or the “out of memory causes swapping” problem, but that does not seem to be your problem. I have encountered a problem I’m unable to solve with my limited tools and knowledge. I would like to be able to move database files from one machine to another. Our tape drives are not compatible, and there are no other common device types. We have NS, if this helps. Klaus Franke and Eric Kundl reply: You can DSCOPY them if you specify the file-code. First establish a dsline to the other system: `:DSLINE OTHER;LOGON=user/pass.account/ pass,group/pass` Then DSCOPY the root file: `:DSCOPY BASE to ,OTHER;FCODE=-400` After this, copy all the datasets: :DSCOPY BASE?? to ,OTHER;FCODE=-401 OTHER is the name of your other system; BASE is the name of your database. If you happen to be using Omnidex indexing with the later version that uses privileged flat files rather than datasets, you will have to move them also (or reindex after the move). They have a filecode of -410 and -411 if I remember correctly. Do a LISTF database??,3 to see the file code...) I’m trying to keep our patches straight. What is the name of the file that contains a listing of the patches that have been applied to our system? You can find the listing in the file HPSWINFO.PUB.SYS We are about to implement our first jumbo dataset. Is there anything special we should be aware of? Paul Christidis and Richard Holloway reply: Jumbo datasets live in the Posix file space. Do your homework on how your backup package handles jumbo datasets in particular and Posix file space files in general. Why don’t I have a subsys tape with Express 4? Now I’m confused about what an Express Release is. HP’s Jon Cohen replies in a series of questions and answers: An Express Release is the coordinated development and release of a PowerPatch and subsys tape containing new/updated HP products. An Express Release gets its name from the PowerPatch that is being developed for release with the Express Release. Is it normal for me to get a PowerPatch 4 with an Express 3 subsys tape? Yes, that is normal. The last time HP released a subsys tape was at Express Release 3. The latest PowerPatch is 4. So, you’d get the latest PowerPatch (4) and the latest subsys from the last Express Release (3). Is there an Express Release 4 and will it fix my Year 2000 problems? No. HP didn’t release a coordinated subsys tape with PowerPatch 4, therefore there is no Express Release 4. You may then correctly deduce that if Express 4 doesn’t exist, it can’t fix anything. Okay wise guy, so do I need PowerPatch 4 and the subsys tape from Express Release 3 to fix my Year 2000 problems? No. The Year 2000 fixes were rolled into PowerPatch 4, and the Express 3 subsys didn’t contain Year 2000 fixes. Why was there no Express Release 4? At HP World, HP promised that they’d release the Year 2000 fixes in Express Release 4 (the coordinated release of PowerPatch 4 and a subsys tape). HP realized that the Year 2000 problems could be fixed by just patches and they had no need to release a coordinated subsys tape. No coordinated subsys means no Express Release; therefore HP just shipped PowerPatch 4 to fix the Year 2000 problems.