HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Effective Utility Management
There are a number of ways you can make the best use of the Administrator
Utility. Some of these ways are suggested below.
Configuration
The primary way to use the screens that branch from the Configuration
Main Menu to greatest effect is to know your users and their needs well.
Then configure Access Server to meet those needs.
Here are some things you can do to make Access Server perform best for
your users:
* When you name your configured tables, be as precise and
descriptive as you can. Your users may be able to suggest
appropriate names.
You might also consider including the approximate size of the
table in the Table Description field when you define your table.
* Use the Table Description field to further clarify what the table
is for, and perhaps the approximate number of records the table
contains. A description of this sort can provide a useful warning
to users before they commit to selecting a large table.
For large IMAGE tables, use this field to identify search items,
to allow users to take advantage of chained reads.
* Do what you can to minimize the need for your users to manipulate
large IMAGE-derived tables (tables containing more than 30,000
records) from their PCs.
If they routinely reference the same body of data, draw this data
together into a view table.
* If you've configured a table from which you intend to create view
tables for actual use, you can keep the original table off your PC
users' Remote Tables screen by assigning an empty access group (an
access group without users) to the table.
* Keep in touch with your users' needs as they change. Remind them
that frequently accessed data can be drawn together as a view
table.
To optimize performance, bring the information in this chapter to
their attention.
Also, make them aware of the Access PC command file feature, which
lets PC users automate any fixed sequence of Access PC commands.
The basic information is found in the Using Information Access PC
manual. You might want to acquaint more sophisticated PC users
with the Information Access PC Connections and Batch Processing
manual.
System Status
Effective use of the System Status screens involves primarily the three
Saved Table screens. To find areas for improvement:
* Examine table status at the List Saved Tables and Show User's
Saved Table screens. You may discover that some users with
unlimited saved table capability are saving an unreasonable number
of tables or using an unreasonable amount of disc space.
You can then impose some limits on those users (using the Change
User screen), discuss the situation with them, and delete some of
their saved tables (using the Delete Saved Table screen).
* In your discussions with users, you may find that you need to
configure some new view tables. View tables can save your users
time defining and refining a query they make frequently, keep the
bulk of their relational operations on the host machine where they
are most efficient, and reduce the amount of disc space used for
saved tables.
Reports
There are two ways to make the printing of reports most effective:
* Print only as much as you really need. This will minimize the
time your terminal is tied up during the report generation.
If, for example, you need a printout of user definitions only,
select the Report on Configuration screen's list all users option.
If you need a particular user definition, you can get that by
choosing Print f1 on the Show User screen.
The length of time it takes to generate a report depends on the
amount of data involved, the size of the host HP 3000, and the
load on the host machine at the time you generate the report.
* Decide which print device you want your reports sent to. If the
device is other than LP, do a file equation before running the
Administrator Utility. If you like, the file equation can be
incorporated in the UDC used to run the Administrator Utility (as
discussed in "Redirecting Printed Output" in Chapter 2.)
Table Synchronization
If you have a large number of tables to check, consider creating a batch
input file instead of working interactively. (For details, see Chapter
9, "Synchronizing Tables.")