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The Sub-Capacity Planning Tool is a PLANNING TOOL which analyzes your mainframe's LPAR utilization and rolling 4-hour average LPAR utilization, in terms of Millions of Service Units (MSUs). This tool is designed to assist you in planning for sub-capacity pricing by providing you with planning information for "sizing" your LPARs. The Sub-Capacity Planning Tool can be used for analysis for sub-capacity software charging including: Workload License Charges, Entry Workload License Charges and Sub-Capacity Value Unit Pricing.
The Sub-Capacity Planning Tool is designed primarily for planning purposes in situations where the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT) cannot run such as non-zSeries hardware, z/OS not in 64-bit mode, SMF89 records not collected, etc. If you already meet the requirements for running the SCRT then you may use that tool instead as it will give you a more definitive view of how many MSUs per eligible product you would actually be billed for under Sub-Capacity WLC or EWLC.
The Sub-Capacity Planning Tool is a job that runs on any mainframe analyzes (post-processes) any SMF70 records. The code is a load-and-go object deck embedded in the job. In most instances, the SMF70 record contains data describing all of the LPARs on a particular server. Hence, you only need to run the tool once per server, against the SMF70 data belonging to a single image. When selecting the SMF70 data to post-process, you should choose the image that has the least amount of downtime on each server.
The Sub-Capacity Planning Tool will analyze SMF data from the following types of environments:
- IBM or non-IBM mainframes
- mainframes running MVS, OS/390 or z/OS
- mainframes in basic mode or LPAR mode
- LPARs with shared processors or dedicated processors
This website includes basic instructions on using the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool. In addition, more detailed information on customizing and running the job is documented in the comments of the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool JCL.
To get started, you should download the tool then customize and execute the job on your host system. The job will output a flat text file
with comma separated values. You should then download the text file from the host to a PC and open the text file
using spreadsheet software or text file viewer.
When reviewing the output file, there will be one row for each RMF interval including the date and time of the interval.
For each interval, the tool will generate two values per LPAR: the MSUs utilized for the interval (i.e., utilization)
and the rolling 4-hour MSU utilization (i.e., rolling 4-hour average).
In addition to the interval-by-interval data, the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool report also includes an easy-to-read report header that describes the peak rolling 4-hour average utilization of 1) each LPAR 2) combinations of LPARs and 3) the overall machine. The Planning Tool will allow you to specify specific LPAR combinations (see details of the 'COMBIN DD' statement in the JCL). If you do not specify your preferred combinations, all combinations will display in the header.
For example, if you do not specify which combinations you wish to see for a machine that has three LPARs (A, B and C), the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool report header will list the highest rolling 4-hour average utilization for each LPAR combination, within the data analyzed:
- LPAR A
- LPAR B
- LPAR C
- A & B
- A & C
- B & C
- All LPARs (machine utilization)
Notes:
- To manage report length, only the first 50 LPAR combinations will be shown, and any remaining combinations will be suppressed. There is a paramenter that you may use to show ALL combinations. See the JCL for more details.
- Due limitations in the SMF70 record, the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool uses a different algorithm from the Sub-Capacity Reporting Tool (SCRT). Sub-Capacity Planning Tool results are expected to be within 3-5% of SCRT.
- Unlike SCRT, the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool is able to analyze servers in basic mode.
- The SMF70 records you put in the input stream of the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool need not be sorted.
Specific instructions are contained within the comments of the Sub-Capacity Planning Tool JCL.
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