Strobe Compatibility Issues

Under specific conditions, some restrictions and incompatibilities exist between the Strobeproduct and other proprietary packages. Review the sections below while planning your Strobeinstallation to determine whether any apply to your site.

Checkpoint/Restart During Measurement

Because of an MVS restriction, checkpoints cannot be taken while Strobeis measuring a job step. If the measured program does not use the checkpoint return codes, you can measure the program without any additional changes (you will receive warning messages from MVS stating that checkpoints could not be taken). To avoid a nonzero return code from a CHKPT macro, code RD=NC on the EXEC statement of the target job step. The operating system returns a condition code of zero to the CHKPT macro invocation, and execution continues normally.

Limited Function Address Spaces

Strobewill not measure Limited Function Address Spaces (LFASs). These address spaces are normally created by MVS. They are usually accessed by other address spaces via cross memory services and thus have little or no execution on their own behalf. Strobe/ISPF identifies these address spaces on the Display Active panel.

Address Spaces Using VIO, TCAM, and TSO

When a measurement request is made for a job step that uses VIO, TCAM, or TSO but is not yet executing, Strobewill attach its measurement task as a non-job step task rather than a job step task. If the job step subsequently attaches a job step task, the attach will fail.

Programs That Attach Tasks as Job Step Tasks

When Strobereceives a request to measure a job step that is already executing and whose main user task has already attached one or more tasks as job step tasks, MVS requires that the Strobemeasurement task be attached as a job step task. Some MVS resource managers, such as TSO and VIO, assume that when any job step task terminates, the job step itself terminates, and so they terminate resources that belong to all tasks, not only those belonging to the terminating job step task. The remaining tasks often ABEND. Therefore, when Strobemeasures in such an environment, the measurement task must persist throughout the duration of the step. The measurement task can remain inactive, however, with sampling suspended and the sample dataset closed.

Whether Strobepermits measurement of active job steps that attach their tasks as job step tasks depends on the following:

JSTCB option in the PARMLIB member
Whether the NOQUIT keyword is specified in the measurement request.

BatchPipes Support

When Strobedetects that a dataset is managed by BatchPipes, reports such as the Resource Demand Distribution and Dataset Characteristics reports will show CPU usage attributed to the BatchPipes processing. To enable Strobeto report on BatchPipes activity, you must do one of the following:

Copy the BatchPipes Query Service (module ASFPMSQI) to a linklist dataset
Add a STEPLIB for the dataset containing module ASFPMSQI (typically, “SYS1.SASFPLIB”) to the measured job

You also must have applied IBM PTF UN59629.

SmartBatch

If you specify a step number to measure a job step running in an IBM SmartBatch environment, Strobemay not be able to locate the job step if steps for the job are run on different systems.

CA ACF2

To measure address spaces that are defined to the CA ACF2 Sub-Auth Facility, modify the rules to allow the following modules to submit jobs:

STRBCRB for all jobs
IDMBCRB for IDMS jobs
DFHBCRB for CICS jobs
DFSBCRB for IMS jobs.

You cannot run the session manager STRBCSM as a batch job with CA ACF2.

IPCS for CICS

You cannot use IPCS to format a CICS dump taken during Strobemeasurement. IPCS can be used to format a dump after a measurement has ended. The presence of STRBCRB prevents the dump formatter from recognizing that the dump is from a CICS region.

CICSPlex Sysplex Manager (CP/SM)

If you are using CP/SM and you want take a Strobemeasurement of CICS region that uses the CP/SM API, you should consider applying IBM APAR PQ51348 to avoid S306-0C abends.

If you plan to use the Request By CICSPlex feature (iStrobeonly), ensure that the StrobeSession Manager address space has READ access to any/all SEYUAUTH datasets for active CICSPlex subsystems on a target LPAR.

If RACF CLASS(CPSMOBJ) is protected, you may need to add the StrobeSTC with READ access or you may see ICH408I messages when Strobeattempts to identify CICSPlex names and/or connected CICS region names:

ICH408I USER(<user> ) GROUP(STC ) NAME(<STROBE SM> ) CONFIG.DEF.<CMASNAME> CL(CPSMOBJ ) INSUFFICIENT ACCESS AUTHORITY FROM CONFIG.** (G) ACCESS INTENT(READ ) ACCESS ALLOWED(NONE )

CA 1/External Data Manager

When you are using the CA 1 or CA Dispatch products with the External Data Manager (EDM), you must use either a job or dataset name as the EDM criteria in the TMOEDMxx definition. Do not use the EDM program name as the EDM selection criteria.

CA InterTest

Attribution reports for Strobemeasurements of CICS applications running with CA InterTest may be incomplete. Run the CICS application without CA InterTest to obtain complete attribution reports.

Changeman Audit

Strobewill not measure programs executing in a Changeman address space.

HSM

Strobewill not measure programs executing in the HSM address space.

Hiperbatch

When measuring a job that is using hiperbatch, you must specify the NOJSTCB option on the ADD command to prevent early termination of the user task.

FOCUS

Strobe does not measure programs executing in the address space for Focus Versions 7.01, and 7.03 and 7.05. See MIPS#34002 for 7.01 and MIPS#33993 for 7.03.

CA Panexec

Strobefor CA Gen (AllFusion) CA Panexec supports job libraries and LNKLST libraries managed by the CA Panexec product. CA Panexec prevents Strobefrom accessing program libraries to acquire control section information. To acquire this information, you need to use Strobefor CA Gen (AllFusion) CA Panexec and latest PTFs issued by CA Panexec. Member PANEPTF in STROBE.CNTRL contains instructions on the CA Panexec PTFs.

Dynamic LINKLIST Support

To prevent creating incorrect measurement or attribution data, do not issue the following command during a Strobemeasurement session:
SETPROG LNKLST,UPDATE,JOB=xxxxxxxx

PDSMAN

If you create the Strobeenvironment after the PDSMAN LPA option has been enabled, and subsequently disable the PDSMAN LPA option, the Strobeattach filter may become disabled. Compuware recommends that the Strobeenvironment be created prior to enabling the PDSMAN LPA option. Doing so allows the Strobeattach filter to remain enabled.

MIM

Strobeis incompatible with and will not allow you to measure a Multiple-Image Manager (MIM) address space.

IBM InfoSphere Change Data Capture for z/OS

Strobedoes not measure the Change Data Capture address space. This address space uses SVC screening which interferes with the Strobeimplant process.

BMC Product Compatibility Issues

This section discusses compatibility issues between Strobeand BMC Software products.

BMC STOP X-37

You cannot use the BMC/Boole STOP X37 product to manage Strobelog datasets.

BMC Application Restart Control

If you are using the BMC Application Restart Control (AR/CTL) product, you must be using version 2.2.02 before you can use Strobe.
When measuring a job step that uses any of BMC’s AR/CTL products and has any datasets allocated to VIO, you cannot use Strobeto measure the job step with an ADD QUEUED request.
Compuware recommends that you use an ADD ACTIVE request, or modify the job step JCL to remove the VIO allocations before using Strobeto measure the job step with an ADD QUEUED request.

BMC Data Accelerator

If you are using the BMC Data Accelerator, it must be running before you start Strobe.

BMC UNLOAD

When in a JES3 environment, the BMC Unload+ procedure may multitask and try to close files under a task control block other than the one that opened it. For corrective action, see the “JES3 Considerations” section in the BMC Unload Installation manual.

Control-D and Control-M

Before attempting to use Strobeto measure a Control-D or Control-M system, contact BMC Software for PTF information.

C Programs with Compiler Option OPTIMIZE(2) or Interprocedural Analysis (IPA)

When C/370 and AD/Cycle C/370 programs use compiler option OPTIMIZE(2) or inter-procedural analysis (IPA), the information Strobeneeds to produce detailed statement level associations is removed. Therefore, Stroberelates activity and wait time to the C procedure name, rather than to the user-coded C statement.
Compuware recommends that you use an ADD ACTIVE request, or modify the job step JCL to remove the VIO allocations before using Strobeto measure the job step with an ADD QUEUED request.

VSAM Dataset Management

Do not use third-party vendor products to manage any VSAM datasets used by Strobe. These datasets include the queue, system message, group, history and AutoStrobe datasets.

StorageTek

StorageTek’s Host Software Component (HSC) library management software cannot be measured by Strobe.