Managing data files

To obtain the best performance from the CICS® PA plug-in, you can manage your data files in various ways.

The CICS monitoring facility can produce a significant volume of output, which can produce very large data files. Every time you download data or open a file in the CICS PA plug-in, you use workstation memory. The larger the data selection, or file size, the more memory is used. Opening a large file for analysis might considerably slow your workstation depending on the amount of memory available. Following the suggestions below helps to manage your data files in a more efficient way:

Restrict the number of database records to retrieve
The maximum number of records that are downloaded from a database for each view or query is 10,000. You can limit the number of records to download by clicking Window > Preferences > CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS and changing the number in the Preferences dialog.
Create csv files with 17000 records or fewer
Be selective when creating csv files. A 17000 record csv file is around 15 MB in size. Opening larger files increases the memory usage and might offset the performance of your workstation. If you have a lot of data, create multiple csv files instead of one big file.
Divide the data between different projects
Keeping related sets of data in different projects makes data easier to manage. Projects that are not in use can be closed. Closing a project frees up workstation memory.
Save each file in a separate folder
Every time a folder is opened, the CICS PA plug-in analyzes all the files in the folder and saves the information in workstation memory. If you have multiple files in a folder, more memory is used. The memory is not released until the project is closed or until the CICS Explorer™ is closed. If each folder contains only one file, the memory usage is kept at a minimum.