I am responsible for a z/OS program that runs as a started task and processes 
asynchronous "events." (IEFU8x exits being driven with particular SMF records, 
but no matter.) After much head-scratching, I figured out that CPU time per 
event was GREATLY and fairly predictably affected by how rapidly the events 
occurred! I have a "driver" program that I can use to artificially push 
simulated SMF records through the program, and I found that if I run that 
driver program at a leisurely pace, perhaps 15 events per second, then 1000 
records consume about .2 CPU seconds. But if I drive records through the 
program as fast as it can handle them -- about 12,000 records per second -- 
then each 1000 records consume about .083 CPU seconds -- LESS THAN HALF as 
much. (If you do the arithmetic you can see that at 12,000 records per second 
the program is pegging one CPU at 100%.) BTW, the program is single-thread and 
cannot exploit multiple CPUs.

I don't really know, but my conclusion is that either "getting interrupted" 
consumes a fair amount of CPU time, or else that if the program is busy 
continuously it tends to "own" the instruction and data caches, which saves a 
lot of CPU time.

I would be interested in any comments on the situation or my analysis of it. 
I'm not "unhappy" or terribly surprised -- this is just engineering 
intelligence I am after here. It's kind of a good thing: the busier the program 
is, the better it runs. A much more favorable situation than the other way 
around.

Charles

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf 
Of Ed Jaffe
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:30 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: CPU time

On 1/30/2014 9:30 PM, Ron Thomas wrote:
> Hello. I have a program that i am executing 2 times the number of records 
> that is processed is same in both the time, but i am seeing CPU execution 
> times are different. Can someone throw some light on why this is comming as 
> different?

----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN

Reply via email to