IDMS database space management

[Michael Cairns]

Hi all - new member, new to IDMS, first time poster,

We are looking into updating our space management reporting.  Interested to hear what others do to monitor both:

periodic space use across all database areas, say a weekly report to highlight longish term trends, and

hourly monitoring of space use across critical database areas

Thanks - Mike

[Richard Hagemeyer]

Hi Michael and welcome!

I run a space report daily and parse the IDMSBCF output with a REXX.  I save one-line summaries by area and email a report of areas over a threshold.

I keep data for one-year to help spot trends and periodic variations.

------------------------------
Best regards, rh

Richard Hagemeyer
------------------------------

[Michael Cairns]

Hi Richard - thanks for the welcome and the information also.

We presently do something similar with long established procedures and are looking to see if a more 'modern' approach can be found nowadays.  Right now we run an SQL query against the system catalog (IDD?) to retrieve a complete list of all AREA's, for which we then run a space report against each AREA as follows:

PRINT SPACE FOR AREA XXXXX.AAAAA FULL;

We then use a custom REXX exec to process this report output, extract the percentages for each AREA and store these into a database.  The actual space reports are then run as queries against this database which retains history as well, so we can determine the rate of change for space usage in each AREA.  We are more interested in AREA's that have changed by a threshold percentage over the reporting period than we are AREA's hitting a specific percentage used (though we report on both also).

We have asked ourselves the question "If we were creating a space reporting regime from scratch for this system today, what technology would we prefer to see deployed to do this?".  Ideally we wish to avoid the use of custom REXX and are looking for any kind of API that would support extraction of statistical data programmatically.  Obviously there is a maintenance overhead with any approach, but we prefer the idea of a vendor supported API better than locally written scripts.

I have started to investigate the DB Analyzer System, which caught my attention as it already provides reports showing a 'variance percentage' which closely aligns with one of our main requirements.  Another potentially attractive characteristic of these reports is that they are based on statistical data, which it seems could be captured and stored for long term trend reporting similarly to as we already do.  The documentation provides what seems to be an API for this statistical data in the form of the Statistics Accumulation File, including the necessary information to create Copybooks for this file in the documentation here:  File Form. 

Anyone caring to share their experiences on looking into this or other approaches would be very much appreciated.  Apologies for any terminology imprecision, I am only just learning about IDMS though I have a long background in general mainframe systems programming.

Thanks and regards - Mike

[Denise Basore]

I think you'll fine that most people run a print space and then strip it down to one-lines with REXX, SAS or something similar.

[Tim Costello]

We do a very similar process. Run space management weekly, scrape the reports, and store the statistics in an IDMS SQL database. We report and area over the threshold set and report the history of the area, this way you get an idea of the run rate.

Tim Costello
Director - North/South Merchant Master until 3/31/2025
GBS Back Office Core Processing
Teams Voice: 470-669-7532 | Mobile: [phone]
[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>

Fiserv<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=https-3A__www.fiserv.com_index.aspx&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=BZ4AsZFUrquDxpjQTmhG7Y1PrwENMxLxjip2r2WECvE&e=> | Join Our Team<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=https-3A__www.careers.fiserv.com_-3Futm-5Fsource-3Doutlook-26utm-5Fmedium-3Demail-26utm-5Fcampaign-3Dsignature&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=urT636Bko28hgP2vgbC4L5Muqvjk5dY3tmiBcrZUfRQ&e=> | Twitter<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=https-3A__twitter.com_fiserv&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=VFMKKOxfVx8X9vo8EUMTHSFB-rmmfBAm4AQ7GSRMawo&e=> | LinkedIn<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_company_fiserv_&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=0KT1v618bYF3pUi-QJAzYogQp3ntAe6RLnSx3pt4wC4&e=> | Facebook<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=https-3A__www.facebook.com_Fiserv_&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=v0ZOrI-kY0lukoIfpBKxiuye6zNlyd3ZZBFG0_WcjQo&e=>
FORTUNE Magazine World's Most Admired Companies(r) | 2024
(c) 2019 Fiserv, Inc. or its affiliates. Fiserv is a registered trademark of Fiserv, Inc. Privacy Policy<https: urldefense.proofpoint.com v2 url?u=http-3A__fiserv.com_about_privacypolicy.aspx&d=DwMGaQ&c=ewHkv9vLloTwhsKn5d4bTdoqsmBfyfooQX5O7EQLv5TtBZ1CwcvjU063xndfqI8U&r=DhuxLF27WYthG-oLriBpSFsbSw1I5i2d895wxh8VY20&m=BIEknoCR_FKxnPpOj0Y-Bee0m8jPof-E79bKGvU0u9U&s=b7HNbknTsxVdKPi_kXbH7pz31TqQJrr_tXTxCa1kKPI&e=>

[Richard Hagemeyer]

Yes, we used to run space reports weekly and we produced a "normal" report of areas over a threshold.  The only archive was the archive of the weekly reports.

When I moved to daily space reports, I saved the data, not the parsed reports.  The REXX I use saves the area and record statistics in CSV format.

Another REXX program scans the area and record CSV files and emails a summary CSV containing key records and areas over a threshold full; all JCL parameter driven.

I like the CSV format as spreadsheet programs make it really easy to do analysis and look for patterns.  No need to decide ahead of time what I want.