Paul, I agree with the advice that batch queues would often benefit from using oscillate, and online (C subqueue) would be best left at decay. Many sysadmins try to improve the performance of their batch jobs by having the queues overlap (such as CQ=152-200, DQ=180-253), but that doesn't buy them anything unless oscillate is turned on. The fact that the dispatcher decays priority based on transaction length, and that a transaction is defined as the activity between terminal reads, and batch jobs never do terminal reads, means that batch jobs decay to the bottom of the queue and stay there. They can only take advantage of the overlap during that brief time that they are decaying. With Oscillate, they can return to the overlapped range of priorities occasionally. For the same reason, using oscillate only buys you something if your queues do overlap. All of these questions depend on a bunch of factors, and what's right for one shop probably won't work for others. Keep a close eye on your system as you experiment with these settings and be prepared to quickly change things if your system's performance takes a nosedive. -----Original Message----- From: Paul Thompson [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 3:39 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: To decay or not to decay - that is the question..... We currently have out job queues set to decay but are considering modifying some/all to oscillate. How have you guys out there have your queues set? Has only found any benefits/drawbacks about making such a change? Any feedback at all would be welcome!! TIA Paul Thompson Spark Response _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Control Centre. For further information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp