Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer V6.0

Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer V6.0
Module 3: Exploring an Application for Understanding Module 3 - Explore

Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer
Module overview After completing this module, you will be able to: Describe the situations in which Rational Asset Analyzer is useful for application understanding Perform the following tasks: Explore and document assets using RAA Search for specific assets Trace and document asset relationships This module presents the process for connecting to the remote system to begin development in IBM Rational Developer for System z. Module 3 - Explore

Topics > Application Understanding Basic explore and search Exploring for understanding > = Current topic Module 3 - Explore

What is application understanding?
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer What is application understanding? Understand program, transaction, and batch code structure and relationships across the enterprise Levels of understanding: Data level Program level Application level The work of software developers, programmer-analysts, application analysts, technical project leads and systems analysts requires application understanding for problem-solving in order to: Scope application changes Determine the impact of a change Trace a software defect to its root cause Make the right change to the code And so on You can think of application understanding at different levels of the software system: Data level, using source listings and data flow diagrams to make program changes. Program level, using reports and diagrams to understand program logic Application level, using reports and diagrams for building test cases. Module 3 - Explore

The challenges of application understanding
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer The challenges of application understanding Inadequate or outdated documentation SMEs have limited availability or are not available Complicated architectures Inconsistent naming conventions Time- and network resource- intensive tools and processes Some common approaches to researching the structure and behavior of code include: Reading code line-by-line: Given the size and complexity of production assets, this usually proves to be a time-consuming and error-prone. Reading code comments: Depends on individual developers’ technical writing skills, time available for documentation, rigor in updating documentation, and so on. Discussing the code with other experts: Often access to subject matter experts for a particular analytic requirement may be limited, or the experts may have moved on from the project or left the organization. Module 3 - Explore

1-Minute Poll: Your application understanding process
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer 1-Minute Poll: Your application understanding process Other than RAA, what tools and processes can be used to understand existing source code? Tools Process or Approach Module 3 - Explore

Using ISPF is not enough.
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Using ISPF is not enough. Using ISPF’s Data Set List Utility (Op. 3.4) presents challenges for application understanding: Requires many, repeated searches Requires existing knowledge of data set and library locations Inconsistent formatting of source artifacts can skew results Inactive components or comments can show up in results Most developers use the provided z/OS search tools in ISPF’s Data Set List Utility (option 3.4) to help them understand the relationships between the components of their applications. Using Rational Asset Analyzer can be more effective and efficient. Some key differences include: Ease of use: In ISPF, you might have to run multiple searches. If four different libraries house programs that can imbed a copybook, all four need to be scanned. A variable search has to include copylibs as well as program libraries. Existing knowledge: You need to know which libraries to scan. Someone already familiar with the application structure and its libraries might know this information and can initiate the correct scans. For someone who is somewhat new to the application, this process is often a mystery, which can lead to incomplete results or unnecessary scans. Formatting: Use of REPLACE with a copybook imbed can make understanding source impacts more difficult. For example, a copybook is imbedded with a prefix of OUTREC in five programs and other prefixes in 20 others. Someone scanning for variables named OUTREC-ACCT-SUM could miss the copybook. More likely, they have to scan for everything with ACCT-SUM and then spend time weeding out the false positives. RAA resolves these substitutions when the source is scanned so that the user can retrieve only instances of OUTREC-ACCT-SUM. Resource usage: RAA scans the source once and logs the relationship in the repository. A “where used” might require a couple of clicks and up to a minute before the results display. Running multiple option 3.4 searches can take much longer and consume more resources. Scanning inactive components: An ISPF search scans every program, PROC, or copybook, including unused ones. The RAA repository can be trimmed to reflect what is actually in use. Unused copybooks and PROCs, for example, can be identified and deleted from the repository. Searching additional attributes: The metadata that RAA creates includes attributes that are associated with each asset, for example data element attributes include data type and length and program attributes include whether they run in CICS or IMS. These attributes can be used when constructing searches to find or exclude specific sets of assets. There are also functional differences including: ISPF searches pick up text strings in comments while RAA will not. RAA finds nested copybooks that ISPF option 3.4 would miss. RAA searches can be restricted to where a variable is actually used rather than everywhere it is declared. ISPF searches identify usages in components that have not been loaded into the RAA repository. Module 3 - Explore

Application understanding with Rational Asset Analyzer
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Application understanding with Rational Asset Analyzer Quickly understand code and relationships across the enterprise, with little or no documentation: Trace a software defect to its root cause Scope application modifications Determine the impact of a software change And more Use RAA to understand the structure and behavior of: Programs Batch jobs Online transactions Batch job diagram When working on an existing application, in order to make decisions about code changes and testing, you must have some understanding of the program and how it relates to other application components that will be involved in testing. RAA generates relationship diagrams, structural diagrams, impact analysis lists, and more, providing a quick way to understand an application’s behavior as maintained by the code: Data understanding via source listings and the data flow diagram to make program changes Program understanding via reports and diagrams to understand program logic Application understanding via reports and diagrams for building test cases Types of application assets supported: MVS application assets Batch jobs, CICS and IMS transactions Programs, data elements, files, and databases Distributed application assets Web pages, Java and C++ programs WebSphere Application Server topology Module 3 - Explore

Rational Asset Analyzer inventory
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Rational Asset Analyzer inventory Captures a snapshot of an enterprise’s: See the student notes on roles: Management roles get the most from the Metrics view of the inventory. Developers focus on Application Assets. SCM managers and administrators use the asset containment view fairly exclusively. Asset Containment Application Assets Metrics Site, applications, containers, concatenation sets, files Programs, jobs, transactions, relationships, run units, business rules File size, lines, complexity, custom metrics 1 2 3 Operational Assets Source Assets Business Assets The Rational Asset Analyzer inventory process populates the database with metadata about assets found within the scope of the inventory scan. You can think of the metadata gathered as falling into three broad categories, each of interest to a different role in a development project: Application assets: Broadly, this category describes the logical and physical software assets that compose enterprise applications and their operational relationships. This category of assets in the database is the primary focus of developers and anyone who explores the database for application understanding. It includes: Source code assets: Programs, transactions, and so forth. Operational assets: The operational view features run units, showing a call or calling program chain Business assets: You can include business-level assets, such as business rules, in this category Asset containment: Describes the physical assets and their locations in containers and data sets (including local files and directories, as well as data sets and members in z/OS). You can specify concatenation sets, prioritized lists of containers used, for example, for copybook expansion in COBOL programs. This category of assets is useful for RAA administrators and members of the team involved in source configuration management issues. Metrics: Describes the set of statistical measurements based on application- and asset-level properties and characteristics. For example, Rational Asset Analyzer provides a set of complexity measurements based on the number of assets and their relationships. You can also build custom metrics. Metrics provided the most general view of the repository, and are typically used by managers and project managers to assess application health and estimate development effort. RAA Metadata Module 3 - Explore

Application Asset Concepts
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Application Asset Concepts Rational Asset Analyzer These are the key asset and containment concepts used in Rational Asset Analyzer. Site: A distinct enterprise system in RAA. An enterprise can define one or more sites. Sites are the master container in RAA, and it is unusual to have more than one. In the z/OS context, a site typically represents an LPAR. Application: A user-defined grouping of components in RAA, used to segment an enterprise inventory. Container: A collection of source or program artifacts for which inventory can be taken in RAA, can comprise any library or SCM containing assets. MVS assets require a concatenation set, an ordered list of containers to be searched to resolve references to included source (for example, JCL PROCs, assembler macros, or COBOL copybooks). Asset (or component): A programming artifact, such as a file or program source, such as: Programs: A set of code artifacts that can be compiled correctly (COBOL, PL/I, Assembler), including data elements, input-output record descriptions, literals, included members (copybooks, macros, JCL procs), SQL columns and tables reference Entry points Data sets, members and libraries Data stores and DD names Batch jobs (JCL) Run units BMS map definitions and mapset definitions Note that sites and applications are logical concepts, categories used in Rational Asset Analyzer. Containers and assets may describe physical elements. Assets Containers Applications Site Module 3 - Explore

Operational Concepts: Run units
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Operational Concepts: Run units Run Unit Unit of execution, composed of one or more programs Entry point Rational Asset Analyzer looks for exactly one location in an application or program where execution can begin. Starting Point (transaction, batch job) Program A Program B Program C Program E Abend Entry Point Program D As part of the static analysis in Rational Asset Analyzer, the product uses the concept of run units to show operational relationships between programs. A run unit is the logical hierarchy of programs or routines that are capable of being reached through a call or through the transfer of control when a batch job or a transaction runs. A run unit provides the load module-level view of all the program modules in a call or calling chain, with external references, starting from each program or transaction and ending at GOBACK for that individual program. An entry point is the location in an application or program where execution can begin. By definition, there can be one and only one entry point for a program or application. Run Unit Module 3 - Explore

Metrics Counts File size Comment lines Lines in file Software metrics Cyclomatic complexity Essential complexity Halstead effort Rational Asset Analyzer’s metrics (offered in tabs on the Home page) are useful for assessing the health and relative complexity of applications in the cost of maintenance. Application metrics show the composition and health of your applications, based on Cyclomatic and Essential complexity, and Halstead effort, as well as file size. Metrics – dashboard: Use program-level metrics are used to break out and analyze your code-base down to the program element-level. This is invaluable information that can be used to assign maintenance tasks to senior/experienced versus entry-level staff appropriately, as well as project management scheduling/scoping at the program level. Other useful Metrics tabs on the Home page include: Metrics – overview: Use to assess overall codebase complexity through the captured statistics, as well as consistency in size and complexity of the programs through the Standard Deviation values (the lower the standard deviation, the more consistently alike the code is). Metrics – detailed: Use to break out and analyze your codebase by language and run-time. These values help you to understand: What kinds of program language technologies are in the inventory The size and complexity of the code across the technologies - which will help you staff projects accordingly Module 3 - Explore

Topics Application understanding > Basic explore and search Exploring for understanding > = Current topic This section introduces explore and search techniques that you apply to gain application understanding. Module 3 - Explore

Home page: Getting started
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Home page: Getting started 2a. Explore assets: Explore MVS Assets 1. Browse metrics 3. Search: Enter search string The slide shows the key features that you use in explore operations and application understanding on the Home page. The Home page itself shows information about asset types that are common to both MVS and distributed assets. Each count is a link to another page listing the assets of that type: Explore menu bar item Search across all enterprise assets Common assets count links Metrics-dashboard tab The Home page lists some types of assets that are common to both MVS and distributed assets: Applications: Application are logical collections of RAA assets Container: PDSs, directories, archive files Files: MVS PDS members and workstation files Impact analyses: list any analysis of impacts that have been performed for MVS and distributed assets Site: MVS and workstation sites The Home page allows a user to search across all types of assets with certain names. This search is against both MVS and distributed assets. 2b. Explore assets: Click on a count Module 3 - Explore

Browsing assets: Start with the Explore menu
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Browsing assets: Start with the Explore menu Explore assets by platform. Explore physical assets, containment hierarchy Explore business assets The Explore menu has choices for exploring the assets loaded by RAA – the Explore, Summary, and Details pages. Customizations Module 3 - Explore

Demo: Explore assets Click Explore > MVS Assets. Click the Programs count. On Page Summary, show page features, select a program, PARTINV. Show a Bookmark page action. Show a diagram page action. 1. Count 2. Summary or List 3. Details 4. Diagram Module 3 - Explore

Browsing the Explore MVS assets page
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Browsing the Explore MVS assets page Shows counts of most MVS assets Enterprise-wide or application-level Click the number in Total column to display an asset list summary Asset types grouped by runtime, program, and data PROCs and copybooks are under Explore > Files See the student notes. The images in the slide show the enterprise-level Explore MVS assets page, but you can also explore assets in a specific application (which is a more common approach, and which is used in the lab). Introduce both approaches here. You can explore MVS assets at either the enterprise (including assets from all applications) or application levels. To explore all MVS assets, use the Explore MVS Assets page (on the main menu, click Explore > MVS Assets). To explore MVS assets for a specific application, from the Home page, click the Applications count or click Explore > Applications to navigate to the Applications Summary page, then select the application to get to the Application details page. From here, click the MVS Assets tab to explore MVS assets. This Explore MVS assets page or tab shows the counts for each type of MVS asset: The Run time column shows assets related to the MVS execution environment – batch jobs, transactions, subsystems, and run units – the executables The Program column shows assets related to the part of a run unit that can be separately compiled The Data column shows assets that deal with fields, records, reading/writing data to files or databases. Clicking any of the counts will bring up a Summary page for that type of asset. The results of Explore MVS assets do not include copybooks and PROCs, which you can find under Explore > Files. Module 3 - Explore

Summary pages Context area Page Actions Paging On a summary page, you may want to: Navigate using the menu bar, the links on the page or the page Actions drop down list. Refine or change the list of assets displayed on a summary page by using the search area. Note: When an MVS summary page is displayed, if there are more than 1000 instances of that particular type of asset in the database, rather than show the first 15 rows, the user is required to specify some search criteria. The threshold defaults to 1000 assets. However, it can modified by updating the autoRunThreshold value in the Common.cfg file. The reason that this threshold is necessary is because it is sometimes expensive to calculate certain summary information for an asset. Several relationships may be followed in the database in order to show useful information. Or, for example, it may be necessary to look at various database tables in order to determine if a particular asset is a candidate for deletion. That information is used to know whether to show a delete link for the asset. If the asset is still in-use, it won’t allow deletion. List count Multiple asset actions Single asset actions Module 3 - Explore

Details page layout and Actions
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Details page layout and Actions Asset details Tabbed content Action list The Actions dropdown appears on various Explore, Summary, and Details pages. You can drop down the list to see what sorts of actions the current page allows. On action that is common to all the Actions dropdown lists is to Bookmark the current page. If you bookmark the page, you can access it again from your list of bookmarks by clicking the Explore menu and choosing Bookmarks. If you are on a Details page viewing information about a particular asset, the actions apply to that particular asset instance. For example, there might be an example to show a diagram of the current asset – like the Show Run unit diagram action. The Summary pages have fewer actions. Besides bookmarking the page, you can sometimes create a new instance of the particular type of asset. That’s most useful for Applications and Concatenation sets. The summary actions may also provide information about all instances of that particular asset type (like showing e-business information from a Program Summary page). Note that Administrators have actions that regular users do not. An example might be an action to add the current asset to the analysis queue. Module 3 - Explore

Diagrams in Rational Asset Analyzer
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Diagrams in Rational Asset Analyzer Application diagram Application Application transaction flow diagram Batch job Batch Job diagram JCL CICS/IMS Transaction IMS CICS CICS/IMS Transaction diagram Program Program diagram Control flow diagram Structure diagram The slide shows the following types of diagrams that help you understand the relationships between specific assets in your inventory: Asset diagram: Shows the relationships among specific assets in your inventory. You can view an asset diagram from the details page for the following assets: Application, Batch job, CICS® group, CICS transaction, File (program and batch job source only), IMS™ transaction, Program, Impact analysis, Run unit. Impact analysis diagram: Shows a subset of the assets that a proposed code change affects. This subset includes specific assets that a code change directly and indirectly impacts. You can only view an impact analysis diagram from the Impact analysis details page. Application transaction flow diagram: Shows the relationships among CICS and IMS transactions, run units, and data base elements. You can only view the application transaction flow diagram from the details page for an application. Control flow diagram: Shows the flow of control within a COBOL program. You can only view a control flow diagram from the details page for a program. Structure diagram: Shows the structure of a COBOL or PL/I program. You can only view a structure diagram from the details page for a program. Program control flow diagram: Shows the flow of control through a program as a graph. Each node in the graph represents a statement in the flow. Program structure diagram: Shows a graph of the structure of the program: the elements that compose the program and their relationships. Each node in the graph represents an element of the program. Run unit Run Unit diagram Impact Analysis Impact analysis diagram Module 3 - Explore

Viewing diagrams Link to the asset. Filter relationships Zoom Link to asset You can use the diagrams in Rational® Asset Analyzer to better understand the relationships among specific assets and among elements within an asset. For example, when you access the batch job details page, you can use the batch job diagram to determine the relationship of the batch job to other assets in your inventory. These diagrams are scalable vector graphics (SVG) diagrams. To view the SVG diagrams, you need to download and install the Adobe® SVG Viewer and enable both the Run ActiveX and the Script ActiveX option in Internet Explorer. If you have not completed this setup, a link for downloading and installing the SVG viewer appears at the bottom of the details page in place of the diagram. Hover Help Module 3 - Explore

Demo: Search MVS Assets
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Demo: Search MVS Assets 1. Enter search string and click Go. 2. Advanced options Search MVS Assets Perform an advanced search Module 3 - Explore

Searching for MVS assets
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Searching for MVS assets Navigate to page with search bar from: Home page: Search all assets MVS page: All MVS assets searched Summary or detail page: All assets of type Navigate to page with search bar from: Home page: The Home page allows a user to search across all types of assets with certain names. This search is against both MVS and distributed assets. MVS page: All MVS assets searched Summary or detail page: All assets of typed searched Enter search terms Access Advanced options Module 3 - Explore

MVS assets advanced search
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer MVS assets advanced search Click link to open Click ‘x’ to close Most MVS summary pages contain Site and Application criteria. Click Go to show results. Only assets that match specified criteria are listed. The advanced search criteria varies from asset type to asset type. Since there are many data elements in this database, the page requires that some sort of search pattern be specified for the name. In addition to the name, Advanced Search criteria can be specified. For the MVS assets, all the various advanced search criteria will be formatted similar to what’s shown here. Often, the first two criteria will be Site and Application. To use one of the criteria, either select a value from a dropdown list, or enter a value if there’s an entry field. In some cases, there are checkboxes that can be specified. After updating the criteria, you have to press Go to refresh the list using the new criteria. Here we have the result of searching for data elements that start out with the prefix ORDSTA but that are also character fields having a logical length of 4. You can see that 4 matches were found in the database. Module 3 - Explore

Simple search rules for MVS assets
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Simple search rules for MVS assets Feature Symbol Usage Wildcard Search * *CCT03, AC*03, ACCT0* Logical Operators AND OR ACCT03 AND ACCT04 ACCT03 OR ACCT04 Include + +ACCT03 Exclude - -ACCT03 Phase search “ ” “A Test” (literal search) Searches are different for MVS and Distributed assets. Details to follow. All MVS search rules apply also to searching across enterprise set of assets from Home Page. Also apply when searching across enterprise assets from Home page. Use double-quoted strings for embedded blanks. For example, “A TEST” Matches assets named A TEST Supports multiple terms. For example, ONE TWO THREE Matches assets named ONE, TWO, or THREE Use minus (–) to exclude terms. For example, A* –“*THE END” Matches assets that start with A but which don’t end with THE END Use plus (+) to require terms. For example, *print* +*string* Matches assets named with print, but which also must have string Use double double-quotes for a literal double-quote. For example,“””SOME TEXT””” Matches assets named with “SOME TEXT” Search term order not important; negation always happens last. For example,–ABC A* Matches assets starting with A, except for ABC There is no way to search for a literal asterisk (*) or question mark (?) in MVS pages. Module 3 - Explore

Search results pages Summary page: List is refined Count page: A Results column is added with counts for # of matches Note that if you are searching under the MVS Assets tab from the Application Details page, the results of a search just filter the Totals column. Matches When you perform a search from the home page, the results appear on the home page. You’ll notice that each result has the Total of all instances of that type followed by the resulting number of matches. Be very careful when doing this sort of global search. It can be very expensive to compute the results. You want to make your search term as specific as possible. If you’re really interested in only one asset type, there are more appropriate places to perform your search, and finding your results will be much faster. Module 3 - Explore

Use Custom queries 37 custom queries provide additional ways to search Module 3 - Explore

Save search results Use the following options: Export (table) to Microsoft Excel Save Web page as HTML Print Web page as PDF When you are on a page of the Rational® Asset Analyzer that has tabular information, if you have Microsoft® Excel installed you can use the Internet Explorer context menu to export the table as a spreadsheet. Right-click the table and click Export to Microsoft Excel on the context menu. Then click Save. You can also click File > Save As use in Microsoft Internet Explorer to save the page as HTML. Just select the “Webpage, Complete (*.htm, *.html)” or “Web Archive, single file (*.mht)” Save option. If you have Adobe Acrobat or a PDF printer and drivers installed, you can select File > Print and select the PDF printer to print the page to a PDF file. Module 3 - Explore

Topics Application Understanding Basic explore and search > Exploring for understanding > = Current topic Module 3 - Explore

RAA Analysis questions
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer RAA Analysis questions Domains of exploration: Application and program elements Data elements, data sets, and DB2 Transactions (IMS CICS) Batch jobs Lines of inquiry: List the elements contained within a scope or element List elements that use or are used by an element List elements that call or are called by an element Visualize elements within a scope Visualize control flow Assess element based on attributes (type, size, length) Browse source code To illustrate ways you might follow these typical lines of inquiry, using RAA, you can perform the following tasks (among others) to acquire program-level understanding: List the batch jobs in an application. List the programs in an application. List the transactions in an application. View the diagram for an application. View the transaction flow for transactions in an application. See the size and complexity of your programs. List the batch jobs that use a program. List the data elements used by a program. List the data sets used by a program. List the DB2 columns used by a program. List the DB2 stored procedures used by a program. List the DB2 tables used by a program. List the programs called by a particular program. List the programs that call another program. List the run units that include a program. List the transactions that include a program. List the programs, transactions, and batch jobs that use an included source file. View the control flow for a program. Browse the source code for a program. List the batch jobs and transactions that use a run unit. List the entry points in a run unit. List the programs that make up a run unit. List the source needed to build a run unit. View the calling hierarchy for a run unit. Module 3 - Explore

RAA search models Search and explore the inventory Study an asset Study assets for understanding Attribute Search Discover assets by attribute From a high-level perspective, there are three related common search models in RAA, which involve browsing (following trails of relationships) and searching (search across the inventory based on patterns or keywords): Study an asset: In this “look at” search model, you search for a specific program, file, table or database within a transaction or batch job, using keyword searches. For example, you might need to find the declaration or use of a specific literal or a variable or copybook within a program. This implies that you know what you are looking for, that the element you seek is unique, and may be abstract (such as looking for a pattern in variables, such as all variables that contain part numbers). Literal Search: In this “look up” or “look for” approach using RAA, you have the goal of learning about an asset in its context. You can search for elements by name or by attribute (such as file size, for example), explore for the element from a group of similar elements (find a batch jobs from a list of all jobs), or use a combination of these approaches. Explore relationships: This means searching for metadata related to or dependent on something else. For example, you might be interested in where-used searches for: What copybooks are contained in this program What variables programs are called from this program What screens are Sent/Received in a given transaction This might also include Impact analysis search patterns to find application elements that might be affected by a change to something else in the application. Explore Relationships Find asset relationships Module 3 - Explore

Scenario 1: Study an asset for understanding
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Scenario 1: Study an asset for understanding Goal: Examine assets to understand structure, behavior, and relationships. Analysis Strategies 1a. Search on the asset name Typical Questions 1b. Navigate MVS asset totals. What contains it? What does it contain? What assets depend on it? What assets does it depend on? Where does it fit in control flow? 2. Follow links In this approach, you study assets to understand what’s in them and how they work. This is often the pre-requisite to the other two search models. This discovery process can be applied to most of the artifact types in the metadata repository. Not all of the repository artifacts have diagram tools, but all have list and detail RAA pages with valuable and rich semantic information on the selected artifact and its dependencies. Diagrams used to “learn about” include Transaction and Run Unit diagrams, which show (online) transactions and batch programs. To get to a transaction or run unit diagram you would need to search and filter the assets in your repository, going from list to detail pages: Search on the transaction or run unit name from anywhere under the Explore menu. Select Explore MVS assets to explore, and then click on the Program or Run Unit category Totals to open a scrolling list of all entries. Browsing might work with a small system, but for production-scale systems with thousands or tens of thousands of inventoried assets, you would need to search or combine a search with Explore MVS Assets. Once you’ve found transaction or run unit detail pages, you can study the metadata, follow links to dependent artifacts, or study diagrams. 3. View diagrams Module 3 - Explore

Demo 1: Study assets in the HOSPITAL application
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Demo 1: Study assets in the HOSPITAL application Study a z/OS batch job Browse for job DDS0001A View and filter Batch diagram Study a program Search for program WARDRPT Review Control transfers tab View control flow and program diagrams Module 3 - Explore

Scenario 2: Discover assets by attribute
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Scenario 2: Discover assets by attribute Goal: Find assets within a particular scope, by name, variable value, or other attributes. Analysis Strategies 1a. Enter words or an expression into Search. 1b. Use Advanced Search to limit results. 2. Study results. Typical Questions Where is a variable declared? Where is a literal or variable used? Which programs include a particular copybook? What BMS maps does a transaction use? Which batch job allocates the particular data set? In this scenario, you search for an assets by name, or another property, or groups of assets that meet a criteria you specify (all assets named with a certain prefix, and so on). This type of search thus implies that you basically know what you are looking for. Because you search asset identifiers in the metadata model in RAA, as opposed to doing a simple keyword search, you can ask more sophisticated search questions and get smarter, more precise results when searching using RAA. Something that you would search for in this way would have the following characteristics: It is something unique that you can find with a single search text argument - and no wildcard characters in the pattern It is something specific, but at a high-level of abstraction, requiring the equivalent of a “LIKE” search in SQL. For example, you might be looking for all variables that contain information on part numbers or automobile VIN numbers throughout an application. It’s almost always the case that naming standards are not universally and precisely adhered to. This results in you having to search with one or possibly many wildcard text characters, and with multiple search phrases (separated by the OR operator). Fuzzy pattern searching is common, and searching for something unique is more often an exceptional case. A typical example of this search is finding the declaration or use of a specific literal or a variable or copybook within a program. Taken up another level you could search for a specific program, a file, DB2 table/database within a transaction or batch job - a BMS/MFS map within a transaction, and so on. Module 3 - Explore

Demo 2: Find using search
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Demo 2: Find using search Search for MVS assets that fit a wildcard text pattern Navigate to the HOSPITAL application’s MVS Assets tab Search for data elements named PAT* Search using Advanced options Search a program for data elements Search with Advanced options for data elements used in program PATLIST. As before, you can assign similar questions from the customer database, or use the sample data. Here are some reminders about search syntax: Search Wildcard Text Characters [] : Isolate the actual strings and are not part of the strings or phrases themselves. * : Wildcard matches zero or more characters. ? : matches exactly one character and ensures that the match is of the same length Logical AND/OR/NOT Searching OR - Multiple terms that are separated by white space and not enclosed in quotation marks are processed as a logical OR expression. NOT : A minus (-) sign is a logical NOT operator and excludes terms. AND : A plus (+) sign is a logical AND operator. The remaining search tokens that don't begin with + are interpreted as OR expressions. Searches that include the Escape Character \ : Backslash is an escape character for asterisk (*), question mark (?), plus sign (+), minus sign (-) single quote ('), double quote ("), and backslash (\). Module 3 - Explore

Scenario 3: Find asset relationships
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Scenario 3: Find asset relationships Goal: Find assets that are related to or dependent on other assets. Analysis Strategies Typical Questions 1. Search on the asset name What subroutines are called from this program? What variables are modified or declared by this program? What screens are sent or received in a given transaction? 2. Navigate MVS asset totals. In this type of search, you are looking for assets that are related to or dependent on other assets. Examples would include: • What subroutines are called from this program • What variables are modified or declared in this program • What screens are sent or received in a given transaction • And so on This type of search includes the impact analysis search pattern, where you are looking for application elements that would, or might, be affected by a change to something else in the application. 3a. Run a custom query 3b. View a diagram Module 3 - Explore

Demo 3: Explore relationships
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Demo 3: Explore relationships Find DB2 tables referenced in a batch job Find batch job DDS0001A Execute custom query DB2 tables accessed View extended called/calling chain from a batch job Execute custom query Batch job run units' expansion Search within results to refine Assign students to find a transaction in the data base. You can use AC03 from the sample data if you are not using customer data. Write this transaction name on the whiteboard. Module 3 - Explore

Lab 2: Explore an Application
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer Lab 2: Explore an Application Complete the following tasks: Task 1: Explore applications Task 2: Examine the QAD09 program Task 3: Discover program details Task 4: Discovering a job/transaction program call topology Task 5: Discover Batch Job details Task 6: Discover Data Set details Task 7: Discover Data Element details Module 3 - Explore

Summary What are the two navigation approaches for exploring assets in Rational Asset Analyzer? What are the three main search strategies in Rational Asset Analyzer?

A tip or skill from this module that you will apply at work:
Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer A tip or skill from this module that you will apply at work: Have students use a cell of this table to jot down something they learned during this exercise that they will apply in their work. ILO: Have the students write directly on the slide. ILT: Have students write to the whiteboard or run this as a class discussion. Module 3 - Explore

Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer V6.0

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Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer V6.0

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Presentation on theme: "Essentials of IBM Rational Asset Analyzer V6.0"— Presentation transcript:

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