Customize data collections

When you use Collection Services to collect performance data, you control what data is collected and how often it is collected.

You can select from the collection profiles that are provided. The Standard profile corresponds to the settings for system data in the i5/OS™ performance monitor function that was provided by the Start Performance Monitor (STRPFRMON) command in previous releases. The Standard plus protocol profile corresponds to the STRPFRMON command settings for all data. Or you can select Custom to create your own customized profile. There are also several other profiles available, refer to the online help for detailed descriptions. For your customized profile, you can select from a list of available data categories, such as System CPU, Local Response Time, Disk Storage, and IOPs (input/output processors).

For each category of data that you collect, you can specify how often the data will be collected. For many categories, you will want to select the default collection interval, which you can set from predefined settings between 15 seconds and 60 minutes. (The recommended setting is 15 minutes.)

Note: When the default value is set to any specified time, all categories except those categories with explicit time intervals, such as, disk storage, input/output processors, and communications-related categories, use the specified time.

The collected data is stored in a management collection object (type *MGTCOL) called a collection. To prevent these management collection objects from becoming too large, the collection must be cycled at regular intervals. Cycling a collection means to create a new collection object and begin storing data in it at the same time data collection stops in the original collection object. You can specify any interval from one hour to 24 hours, depending on how you plan to use the data.

To customize Collection Services on a system, follow these steps:

In iSeries™ Navigator, select either an endpoint system under Management Central or a system to which you have a direct connection under My Connections (or your active environment).
Expand Configuration and Service.
Right-click Collection Services and select Properties.
On the General page, you may want to specify a retention period longer than the default of 1 day. Collection Services may delete management collection objects and the data they contain from the system at any time after the retention period has expired. When the management collection object is created, an expiration date is assigned to it. Even if you move the collection object to another library, Collection Services will delete the object after it expires. You can specify Permanent if you do not want Collection Services to assign an expiration date to new collection objects. You will then have to delete these collection objects manually. To view the Graph History window, you must specify a Collection retention period of either Graph or Summary. When you specify these options, you can take advantage of the historical reporting capabilities, which allow you to do metric comparisons for multiple systems over extended periods of time. You can also specify the path of the location where you want to store your collections, how often you want to cycle collections, and the default collection interval. You can select to create database files automatically during collection.
Click the Data to Collect tab.
For Collection profile to use, select Custom. You can specify the collection interval for each category you select for your customized list.
Click OK to save your customized values.

Once you have customized Collection Services to the settings you prefer, you can right-click Collection Services again and select Start Collection Services to begin collecting performance data.