Overview and setup for sirfile, Chapter 2 – March Products 204 User Manual

Page 11

Advertising
background image

——————————————————————————————————————————

Overview and Setup for SirFile

——————————————————————————————————————————

——————

CHAPTER 2

Overview and Setup for SirFile

SirFile is a comprehensive facility for monitoring the physical storage utilization of

Model 204 database files and warning users of the need for file reorganizations.

SirFile requires only a single screen of setup information to determine “thresholds,” after

which it automatically performs a pass through the online database files, checking to see

if any file has exceeded a threshold. The process that evaluates files is called the

refresh process. The refresh process performs two types of checks:

It compares the current state of each file against the threshold settings to see if any

file statistic is above the critical value for that statistic.

It maintains a database of table usage information which it uses to determine rate of

growth and to predict when thresholds will be exceeded.

During the initial database load, all files added to the SirFile database are compared to

the system default thresholds. After the initial load, the user may override the system

default thresholds with file-specific thresholds for files that require higher or lower levels

of

monitoring.

If any file table is above a threshold, SirFile flags the file with a warning, causing it to be

highlighted

in

SirFile. Once SirFile has stored at least one sample snapshot of a file, it

begins calculating the date at which each table will fill — assuming any table is showing

growth. If the predicted fill date falls within a user-settable number of days, SirFile posts

a prediction to the file, and the file is highlighted in the SirFile screens. When a

prediction or warning is posted using a periodic refresh, a message can also be sent to

the audit trail, as well as to a list of user IDs.

The file parameters that are evaluated for table-full status are ARETRIES, BFULLP,

CRETRIES, CFULLP, DFULLP, EXTNADD, OVFLADD, EOVFLADD, and SPILLADD.

The database refresh portion of SirFile is quite efficient, however it is the most expensive

operation

in

SirFile. Therefore, several options are provided for determining when to

perform a refresh, and for determining when to calculate CFULLP, generally the most

expensive of the refresh calculations.

For more information, see:

“The Refresh Process” on page 11

, for a complete description of the refresh process

“Invocation Techniques for Background Monitoring” on page 33

, for methods that

invoke a periodic refresh

——————————————————————————————————————————

SirFile User's Guide

5

Advertising