Getting started with the CICS PA plug-in

The CICS® PA plug-in is an Eclipse plug-in that extends the IBM® CICS Explorer® to help you analyze CICS monitoring and statistics data processed by the CICS PA product.

Overview

You use the CICS PA plug-in with the CICS PA host to analyze CICS Monitoring Facility (CMF) performance and statistical class data. You can access the data directly from a CICS PA database, or you can use CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS® to format the data as a comma-separated variable (CSV) file and load it into the CICS PA plug-in for analysis.

This getting started information describes accessing the data directly from a CICS PA database. For information about using CSV data, see Working with CSV data.

You can use the CICS PA plug-in for the following tasks:
  • For performance data:
    • Viewing and sorting CSV or database data in a spreadsheet viewer.
    • Selecting one or more transactions for analysis.
    • Viewing CICS performance alert reports and navigating to specific records.
    • Viewing graphical details of transaction performance metrics, including response time, suspend time, CPU time, file usage, and storage usage.
  • For statistics data:
    • Viewing interval-based graphical charts that show multiple system metrics, including storage and transaction response.
    • Viewing CICS statistics alert reports and navigating to specific records.

To use the statistics visualizations in the CICS PA plug-in, certain statistics tables are required in the CICS PA database. For information about which statistics tables are required in the CICS PA database, see The CICS PA plug-in for CICS Explorer in CICS Performance Analyzer product documentation.

Next steps