Prestart Job Services

The Db2 Group PTF update introduces QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Info and QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Statistics, streamlining prestart job tuning with efficient, SQL-based tools.

The Db2 Group PTF released in mid-May contained many new IBM i Services. In this latest update, many Work Management services were added, including two services that will be very helpful in prestart job tuning. This is a real treat for those of us that appreciate these flexible services.
QSYS2.PRESTART_JOB_INFO
The QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Info service returns information that is similar to displaying the prestart job entries for a subsystem. Prior to the availability of this service, you would typically use DSPSBSD and take option 10 to display the prestart job entries associated with that subsystem. If you wanted to review the details, you could display each entry, one at a time. I discovered that using DSPSBSD to *PRINT was often a faster way to review all prestart job entries for a specific subsystem.
With the QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Info service, it is trivial to review all prestart job entries on the system. A simple
SELECT *
    FROM qsys2.prestart_job_info
    WHERE subsystem_active = ‘YES’;
will return every prestart job entry for every active subsystem description on the system.
QSYS2.PRESTART_JOB_STATISTICS
The QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Statistics returns information similar to the DSPACTPJ command, which I wrote about in Display Active Prestart Jobs.  Prior to the availability of this service, you had to use the DSPACTPJ command, or if you are on 7.4, the Retrieve Active Prestart Job Status API could be used.
The DSPACTPJ command limits statistical information to a single active prestart job entry at a time and reviewing all the prestart job statistics for a given subsystem, such as QUSRWRK, is tedious.  QSYS2.Prestart_Job_Statistics makes it very easy.  In fact, IBM provides the Work Management – Prestart job statistical review example with Access Client Solutions.  This example returns statistics for all the active prestart jobs for every active subsystem on the system. There is a small bug in their example; if you try to run it, you need to change “active” to “subsystem_active”.
These new services are great.  They make it much easier to review your prestart job information since you can craft SQL statements to review all the information you want, rather than one piece at a time.
While there are API interfaces to access this information, most administrators are not fond of coding to an API to review system information.  Thus, before the availability of these services, most of us would simply use the green screen interfaces to display this information.  These services will help make tuning the prestart job configuration settings much easier.
 The 7.4 TR2 and 7.3 TR8 web pages have a summary of all the new services for each release. Unfortunately, those still on 7.2 are out of luck.  IBM did not take this function back to 7.2.
 

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