Product Overview

The Sightline for Unisys ClearPath MCP Performance Power Agent (PPA) is the foundation of the Sightline for Unisys ClearPath MCP software suite. A Sightline PPA resides on the ClearPath MCP host and is easily configured to collect data on various key system components, and user-specified programs and groups of programs, as single, measurable workloads. The data is collected, stored on the host, and sent using TCP/IP to Sightline Enterprise Database Manager (EDM) or Expert Advisor/Vision (EA/V) for alerting, analyzing, displaying, and reporting.

Sightline PPA for ClearPath MCP provides the following information:

Processor Information

Sightline monitors processor resources and provides information on user and MCP utilization, activation rates, and queuing delays. Each category contains data to allow more detailed analysis of how processor resources are being used and who is using them.

Memory Information

Sightline reports the amount of available and in-use memory, and provides statistics that profile the Overlay activity of in-use memory and the users of the memory resource. You can use this data to detect memory constraints that cause performance bottlenecks.

I/O Data

Sightline reports I/O data by I/O processor (IOP), subsystem, unit, and family. Performance measurements include percent busy, I/Os per second, average block size, seconds per I/O, and average queue depth. You can use this data to eliminate I/O bottlenecks and improve system throughput through optimal allocation of I/O activity.

Network Information

For each Network Processor (NP or ICP), Sightline reports I/O traffic rates for reads and writes, average I/O times, average block (message) size, queue depth, percent busy, and other key metrics. You can use this data, supplemented with TCP/IP data, to improve the efficiency of communications line handling and the system interface to your LAN/WAN.

Workload Data

Sightline allows workload analysis at two levels: individual online transaction types and program workload classes. Each online transaction type is measured in terms of rate per second, CPU time, I/O time, response time, queue time, and other key metrics. For each user-defined program workload class, Sightline reports the mix count, CPU and I/O utilization, memory utilization, and ReadyQ percent. You can set different performance objectives for each workload class.

Worst Offenders

Sightline EDM and EA/V display event data, including reports on a variety of “worst offenders,” including busiest TCP/IP LANs, busiest BNA connections, busiest database structures, busiest online transaction processors and the programs or tasks that are consuming the highest processor, I/O, and memory utilization, all sorted by user-selected resource criteria. You can view this data in real-time or historically. You can use event data to diagnose system communication bottlenecks and applications that create resource consumption problems at the program level, data structure, or connection level.

External Application Data

Application programs can easily insert data into the Sightline data stream. Application metrics are stored in the Sightline Host Trace Files and the Sightline Capacity Manager, and are subsequently forwarded to Sightline EA/V or Sightline EDM for analysis along with the Sightline performance metrics. This enables you to coordinate meaningful application metrics (for example, order counts and values from an order processing application) with the Sightline-collected application performance and resource usage metrics.

Configuration Requirements

Sightline PPA operates on any ClearPath MCP system.

Ordering Information

Source code is not available for this product.

Product Information

Product information is available on the Sightline Systems download page, located at the following URL:

http://supportweb.sightlinesystems.com