Setup and getting started

CICS PA provides a menu-driven dialog to request generation of reports and extracts for analyzing and tuning the performance of your CICS® Transaction Server systems. CICS Monitoring Facility (CMF) performance class, exception class, and transaction resource class data in MVS™ System Monitoring Facility (SMF) files provide the input to the CICS PA reports and extracts. In addition, DB2® and MQ accounting, System Logger, and OMEGAMON® XE for CICS records in SMF files are analyzed by specific reports.

Facilities are provided to help you to specify your input files, filter the data, and tailor the reports and extracts to suit your requirements.

The dialog requires no special customization or setup. Reporting can commence immediately.

To get started with using CICS PA to analyze the performance of your CICS systems and applications, proceed as follows:
  1. Before installing CICS PA, check that the system requirements are met. See CICS PA system requirements.
  2. To install CICS PA, follow the instructions in the Program Directory. Then to complete the installation, see Installing the CICS PA dialog.
  3. If you are unfamiliar with System Monitoring Facility (SMF) data and how to prepare it for CICS PA reporting, see SMF data used by CICS PA.
  4. To get started with using the CICS PA dialog to define and run report and extract requests, see How to use the dialog.

    By following the topic on 'Defining a Report Set for daily monitoring' in the CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS® Getting Started Guide you can quickly get an insight into how to use the dialog.

    The Performance Totals report is a useful starting point as it is only a few pages and can provide an immediate indication of which area to look into next. Another good report to try is the Performance Summary report with the data summarized by Transaction ID within APPLID.

  5. To understand the JCL generated by the dialog, or set up your own jobs, see JCL for reports and extracts.

    Sample jobs for each report and extract are provided in Sample library.

  6. To understand the CICS PA commands generated by the dialog or to code them directly in your job stream, see Using the CICS PA commands. This chapter includes many syntax examples and sample reports.
  7. For help analyzing the report and extract output, and interpreting the CMF performance and exception data, see the CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS Report Reference.
  8. If results are not as expected, see Messages, and Problem determination to help you diagnose and resolve problems.