Stan Sieler wrote:
[snip]
>    Should this program run as fast as possible, even if that interferes
>    with the performance of the other applications on the system?
>
> This is an impossible question to accurately answer without knowing
> everything about everything.  For example, what if the answer is "yes",
> and the user starts *two* such programs on the machine at the same
time?[snip]
> That represented an informed attempt at balancing the desire for performance
> with the desire to be a good "computer citizen".  Note that my solution
> meant that in the middle of the night, with no other users logged on, I'd
> be underutilizing the machine ... on the other hand, if I said "wow, no
> one is here...grab every available DST", then when the operator tried to
> run a program 2 seconds later, he/she would be unable to!
>
> With MPE/iX, we lack the ability to give MPE guidance about our anticipated
> minimum/maximum resource usage needs.
 
$PLUG ALERT
Given the existance of the Workload Manager Product I would not deny the
possibility of 'guidance' completely.
OK, it _only_ handles the CPU resource at the moment, but even a RESTORE
of huge objects during daytime online business could be limited to use
a maximum of CPU (e.g. 20%); even if the RESTORE spends >50% of its time
in memory manager code, it will most likely not have enough _time_ to
"punch" every localityset of user pages out of memory.
And one change Workgroup definitions on the fly, to match certain needs.
 
$DREAM ON
Now, if we had the ;MAXMEM (in percent) option on the :NEWWG/:ALTWG
commands, wouldn't that be nice ?
$DREAM OFF
But it would be the helluva lot of work to implement this.
 
$PLUG ALERT OFF
BTW, there are 2 memory manager related fixes on the latest
PowerPatch C.50.04, which may help to improve system performance.
 
Goetz.