In the z/OS mainframe environment the free tools are part of the RMF suite of products. These consist of RMF Monitor II, RMF Monitor III, and RMF PM.
RMF Monitor II is used for
snap shot analysis. This monitor has two modes: interactive and
historical. The interactive session is started by issuing command
RMFSTART in TSO and then selecting option 2. You will then be
presented with a menu to choose what type of data to display. This
primarily shows resource usage.
RMF Monitor III is for short
term performance analysis. This session is started by issuing
command F RMF, S III An address space called RMFGAT is then
started that controls the collection of monitor III data. Please note
that RMF must have already been started with the S RMF command.
The monitor III
display is started by issuing command RMFSTART in TSO and
then selecting option 3. RMF Monitor III was originally called RMFWDM;
which stands for RMF Workload Delay Monitor. Its major function is to
show the resources that is causing a job to be delayed.
RMF PM is a
graphical enhancement for RMF online monitoring that allows
you to analyze RMF Monitor III data right from your workstation. It
requires an address space called GPMSERVE to be active on the host.
For more information on RMF check out the following web sites:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/rmf/
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/zseries/zos/rmf/Library/
Many large organizations also purchase additional tools. The most
prevalent of these are OMEGAMON (IBM), and TMON (ASG). In
addition to monitoring resource usage they have facilities to look at
z/OS control blocks, issue commands, and determine the delay reasons
for individual jobs; which, along with other features, provide
added value over some of e free tools.
For more information on OMEGAMON check out the following web site:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/omegamon-xe-zos/
For more information on TMON check out the following web site:
http://www.asg.com/products/product_details.asp?code=TMV
In
contrast to the z/OS world the UNIX/LINUX environment has a more
diverse set of free tools. Due to the fact that there are different
flavors of UNIX (e.g., LINUX, AIX, HPUX, SOLARIS, etc.) there are
usually subtle differences between the use and output from the various
tools.
The most often used tool in the UNIX/LINUX world is SAR
(System Activity Reporter). This is both a historical reporting tool
and a near real-time tool. It is near real-time because it shows a
snapshot of the system resources averaged over a specific interval
(e.g., 5 or 10 minutes) and not what is necesarily occurring at that
moment. SAR is started at boot time and the reports are accessed by
issuing the command SAR.
The most often used real time tools are
TOPAS and TOP. Most versions of UNIX (including LINUX) use TOP. On AIX
TOPAS is used. They are very similar in that they show a snapshot of
system resource usage refreshed over a specific interval (usually 5-10
seonds).
For more information on
TOP you can enter man top on your server or check out the following web
site:
http://www.unixtop.org/man.shtml
For more information on TOPAS you can
enter man topas on your server or check out the following web site:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/systems/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds5/topas.htm
IBM
also provides a free tool for the AIX and LINUX environments called
NMON. NMON was originally developed by IBM as a free unsupported tool
for AIX. They then extended it to the LINUX environment and as of AIX
5.3 TL09 it is bundled with AIX and is fully supported. This version is
called TOPAS_NMON.
For more information on
NMON check out the following web sites:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-analyze_aix/
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/WikiPtype/nmon
