Analyzing VM Performance: A Worksheet Based Approach

Abstract

IBM's Virtual Machine (VM) operating system has become increasingly popular because of its case of use and installation as well as its effectiveness for interactive computing aad office automation. The recently announced 9370 has assisted in the move towards more departmental and distributed computing. For both software case of use, and hardware requirements, VM is expected to be a principle operating system in this environment. In comparison to MVS, there is little literature on VM performance management. This paper describes a systematic approach to analyzing the VM performance reports produced by VMMAP, the Virtual Machine Monitor Analysis Program. Our approach is encapsulated in a worksheet on which performance analysts record performance indicators and describe their conclusions. Over the past year we have used this worksheet to analyse approximately 30 Virtual Machine/System Product (VM/SP) and Virtual Machine/System Product High Performance Option (VM/SP HPO) systems ranging from 9370 mod 20s to 3090 model 200s. We have found the worksheet to be an effective tool for structuring the analysis of VM performance as well as reporting the results of this analysis. Ultimately we hope to automate completely the generation of the worksheet.