Below the calm surface of a hard-working IBM i there is something of a scramble going on. More precisely, it’s a scramble for resources and inevitably. In this job-eat-job scenario, there is little room for sentimentality.
You see, the system doesn’t care that a payroll job is more important than a large but routine print job. It will happily give that large print job all the CPU it wants, leaving the payroll job to wait for available resource regardless of how long that might take.
Thankfully, Robot Monitor provides a command that can put this to rights: MONCHKJCP.
Running this command not only gives system operators valuable insights into the jobs using excessive CPU and disk I/O, it also lets you hinder these jobs when set parameters around their CPU and/or disk I/O usage are exceeded, clearing the way for other jobs to run.
Control CPU Usage
Parameters can be set up in the Robot Monitor GUI on the user’s PC to govern when this action should occur. This is done by setting a percentage limit for the overall system CPU usage and selected jobs CPU usage for a defined number of consecutive samples. Action options include Hold, Lower Priority, or No Action. Warning messages that these conditions have occurred can be sent to the QSYSOPR message queue to keep operators informed, which could in turn be intercepted by Robot Console and escalated.
In addition to being able to set up the jobs on a PC, Robot Monitor also allows the user to show the details of the monitor when jobs violate the threshold and start to be hindered. In the example below run on defined QZD* jobs running in subsystem QSYSWRK, the central screen shows the top 10 CPU-consuming QZDASOINIT jobs. The run priority has been changed to 70 on the top consumer based on the parameters of the MONCHKJCP command.
To customize the command according to your needs, there are a number of definitions available in the setup options for Robot Monitor. In addition to the percentage of system CPU (and number of samples mentioned earlier) before the command is invoked, specifics can be assigned to these same conditions before a job is released from its held status. Other parameters can be customized around programs, users, subsystems, and jobs to include or exclude.
The power and precision of MONCHKJCP will save a substantial amount of time that would otherwise be required to investigate issues arising from these jobs. And that's not all.
MONCHKJCP will also save you money by helping you keep your users productive and happy. See just how much money smarter job monitoring can save you—in dollars—with our job monitoring guide.
Get Started
Learn how Robot Monitor helps you take a proactive approach to system threats by resolving problems before they impact performance and productivity. Request a live demonstration and we’ll show you.
