Hands-on for z/OStm SMF Archival and Analysis

Version 5

What is Hands-on for z/OS?

An SMF Access Tool

Hands-on for z/OS (Hands-on) is an SMF Access tool. It allows for easy access to your SMF data from a desktop interface. There's no longer a need to code a program to access the SMF data. Data access is at your finger-tips with an easy field extract interface:

Once your fields and criteria are selected Hands-on pulls the data and presents it either in an on-screen table or dumps it to a Comma-Separated Values (CSV) file for post-processing in a spreadsheet or other mechanisms. With its batch-invokable interface Hands-on can replace your complicated SMF data access needs and deliver your data right where you need it on the desktop for easy and graphically enhanced access.

An SMF Archival Tool

Hands-on for z/OS is also an SMF archival replacement tool. This one product replaces your legacy archival system, many of which require licenses for other products to operate. With one tool Hands-on has the potential to replace multiple products and licenses. Ask about our SMF Archiver replacement plan designed to instantly lower your costs.

Job Analysis

Hands-on for z/OS is designed to include optional analytic components that provide commonly needed data analysis.

One component is a "deep-dive" job analysis tool. With Job Analysis you start by selecting a job by name and execution instance. You easily move to seeing the job's broad attributes and selecting any one of its steps for a deeper look. A dive on the step reveals how and what that step processed and links you to the datasets that feed step performance. From there you're linked to the system services supporting those datasets by a direct link into subsystem performance. The component also links to a full history of dataset access so you can see which other jobs access this dataset and possibly interfere with this job.

Job Analysis brings the data content of multiple, independent SMF records into a job-centric display that easily gives you the power to quickly understand all the factors and resources affecting a job's performance.

Job Flowchart Extractor

Using the job-centric knowledge of dataset access by jobs Hands-on can quickly create a flowchart showing the inter-job relationships implied by the passing of data between steps and jobs. The result is a flowchart extract that can be visualized by a product such as MS-Project or Lexonix's own VisiTrac product.

Understanding how your data flows from job to job gives you the ability to audit your scheduling product's view of dependency and weed out conflicts that are otherwise randomly affecting your workflow. For those with a large collection of legacy applications this flowchart can reveal knowledge of your workload that may never have been visualized before.

Hands-on's modular structure promises future growth

As Hands-on evolves we'll be adding new SMF analysis components that will bring to light data you already have in your SMF vault but whose correlation across multiple SMF records is difficult and time-consuming to construct. Hands-on is an expanding and evolving tool that will give your organization easy access to a broad spectrum of informative reports and analytics.

What can Hands-on for z/OS do for you?

Hands-on for z/OS brings the diverse and rich trove of SMF records and fields together for seamless and uncomplicated access that anyone on your staff can use. Hands-on maintains full SMF archival/access, adds advanced analytics while reducing processing costs and the annual expense of ownership.