SirFile

SirFile is a comprehensive facility for monitoring the physical storage utilization of Model 204 database files and warning users of the need for file reorganizations..

SirFile is part of the RKTools family of products. As with all RKTools products, SirFile formerly required the installation of the Sirius Mods, with a version equal to or higher than the SirFile version. As of Model 204 V7.5, however, the functions and facilities necessary to run RKTools are built into the Model 204 kernel.

Overview

SirFile requires only a single screen of setup information to determine "thresholds," after which it automatically performs a pass through the online database files, checking to see if any file has exceeded a threshold. The process that evaluates files is called the refresh process. The refresh process performs two types of checks:

• It compares the current state of each file against the threshold settings to see if any file statistic is above the critical value for that statistic.
• It maintains a database of table usage information which it uses to determine rate of growth and to predict when thresholds will be exceeded.

During the initial database load, all files added to the SirFile database are compared to the system default thresholds. After the initial load, the user may override the system default thresholds with file-specific thresholds for files that require higher or lower levels of monitoring.

If any file table is above a threshold, SirFile flags the file with a warning, causing it to be highlighted in SirFile. Once SirFile has stored at least one sample snapshot of a file, it begins calculating the date at which each table will fill — assuming any table is showing growth. If the predicted fill date falls within a user-settable number of days, SirFile posts a prediction to the file, and the file is highlighted in the SirFile screens. When a prediction or warning is posted using a periodic refresh, a message can also be sent to the audit trail, as well as to a list of user IDs.

The file parameters that are evaluated for table-full status are ARETRIES, BFULLP, CRETRIES, CFULLP, DFULLP, EXTNADD, OVFLADD, EOVFLADD, and SPILLADD. The database refresh portion of SirFile is quite efficient, however it is the most expensive operation in SirFile. Therefore, several options are provided for determining when to perform a refresh, and for determining when to calculate CFULLP, generally the most expensive of the refresh calculations.

See also

The SirFile documentation is available in PDF format: Rocket M204 SirFile User's Guide