MPG Unveils i5/OS V5R4 Support with PerfNav 12.0

Published: July 25, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Thinking of upgrading to one of the new System i servers running i5/OS V5R4? You probably already know that you need to do your homework. Buying too little server can cause problems with your applications and anger your users, but if you buy too much server, you're just wasting your money. To help users and business partners figure out exactly how much System i to buy, Midrange Performance Group recently launched the twelfth release of Performance Navigator, its capacity planning tool.

Performance Navigator, or PerfNav, is a Windows-based tool that serves several iSeries management. It can be useful for users looking to boost the throughput of their existing iSeries by adding more memory or storage, or by adjusting storage pools or resetting job priorities. For those OS/400 shops looking to upgrade to a new system, the software's capacity planning function, combined with its capability to store months or years of actual performance data, can be a big help when purchasing new hardware.

Users interact with the product through more than 100 graphs and reports of key performance metrics. MPG has done a really good job of bringing together all the different elements that managers need to determine how their system is running, as well as for system builders as they spec out new hardware for their clients. Users can manipulate PerfNav's graphs and make changes by simply dragging and dropping elements on the screen, while right-clicking or selecting other buttons will enact other operations.

The PerfNav tool uses the PM/400 data collection facility to download raw and "reduced" OS/400 performance data, which it uses to generate the colorful graphs and reports that show how the server's performance has changed over time and how the server will perform against a given workload in the future. The software can be used to track a wide variety of performance metrics against a server, a group of servers, or LPARs, including actual and logical CPU utilization, CPW consumption, application response time, disk utilization, disk arm utilization, memory allocation, transaction throughput, I/O rates, and many more.

The software can be used to perform all types of analyses. With a few clicks, it can answer questions such as: When will CPU utilization reach 70 percent, or when will disk utilization reach 90 percent? Answering questions such as these can mean the difference between undergoing a well-planned upgrade and trying to execute an emergency upgrade once one's processing headroom has been used up.

Performance Navigator's "What If" capacity planning capability enables users to see how their particular workload will run on practically any AS/400, iSeries, eServer i5, and System i configuration IBM ever made. MPG has pre-loaded the PerfNav tool with performance characteristics of 864 models, ranging from the AS/400 Model E35, offering 10 CPW, all the way up to the biggest 64-way Model 595 System i with 1.8 million CPW. (So, no, you can't see how your "query from hell" would run on a B10 model, sorry.)

With version 12, MPG has added several new graphs, including four historical graphs, eight current-day graphs, and enhanced "peak day" graphing capability. Service level graphing has been enhanced with selectable date and time ranges, as well as configurable service level guidelines, the company says. The product's report configuration, customization, and distribution capabilities have also been enhanced.

The company also added a new "RAID to mirroring" button that automatically generates a mirrored configuration of DASD from an existing RAID configuration. Also added to the What-If section are a disk response time graph and an automated "state of the union" key metrics presentation of the current workload on the current server.

This release also enables users to manipulate graphs in new ways with the new moving average line, the capability to combine the current graph with the previous graphs, and the capability to flip the X and Y axes.

PerfNav 12.0 is available now. The upgrade is free to existing PerfNav users. New users need to pay a $$3,695 license fee to use PerfNav with one system; a license to use PerfNav on an unlimited number of systems goes for more than $44,000.

Boulder, Colorado-based MPG also announced the general availability of Power Navigator 2.0, a new release of its performance modeling and capacity planning tool for AIX and Linux workloads running on System p servers or on System i LPARs. This release brings updated graphs and support for NMON release 11x, an IBM performance monitor that MPG uses for input. The pricing structure for Power Navigator licenses is the same as PerfNav's pricing structure, and ranges from about $2,000 to $24,000.

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