How many different collections do you run?

One of my favorite parts of visiting with customers for Help/Systems is asking them what tools they're using and what they would like to have. When I ask people what they use for collecting disk space information, I get several answers.

Sometimes, they say they're using "home-grown" programs. Other times, they use commands, such as the Robot/SCHEDULE Print Disk Information (PRTDSKINF) command or the IBM Retrieve Disk Information (RTVDSKINF) command. Others might use a utility or specialized product. And many customers must run two or more of these on each partition because each one retrieves information differently.

For many tools, disk space collection means using extra disk space just to keep the collection information. It also often means a long-running job that gobbles up CPU cycles. And, when you look into the technology of these tools, you often see that the disk-gathering portion of the software is not even using the latest APIs. So, many tools retrieve only part of the information and also waste CPU and disk space.

Robot/SPACE to the Rescue

Robot/SPACE can eliminate outdated and incomplete disk utilities that don't provide a true picture of disk space consumption. And none of these tools can provide graphics like the Robot/SPACE chart showing disk space consumption by user profile (Figure 1). This chart can be a powerful demonstration of who is wasting resources with excessive disk space use.

Figure 1: The Robot/SPACE disk space collection pie chart identifies disk space use. (Click images to enlarge.)

The Robot/SPACE Collection Explorer has an easy-to-use graphical interface that lets you see which are the largest objects in the IFS (Figure 2) or in your libraries. Isn't it time for you to get out of the Dark Ages? Impress your audience the next time you report on disk space use by providing clear charts or spreadsheets.

Figure 2: What's the largest object in your IFS?

Robot/SPACE helps you monitor, manage, and maintain ASPs, iASPs, libraries, objects, members, spooled files, the IFS, temporary storage, and more—automatically. Give it a FREE 30-day trial.

as/400, os/400, iseries, system i, i5/os, ibm i, power systems, 6.1, 7.1, V7, V6R1

Tom Huntington is Executive Vice President of Technical Solutions at HelpSystems, and has been with the company for nearly 30 years. He works with business alliances, acquisitions and large customer relationships and ensures that the HelpSystems software works with other major software and hardware vendors worldwide.

Tom often speaks on enterprise scheduling, security, automation topics, IBM i technology, and the HelpSystems products, and hosts technical presentations on a variety of automation topics. He is the author of the HelpSystems IBM i Marketplace Survey and has written articles on automated operations, security, cloud computing, and business intelligence for leading trade journals and newsletters. He was named an IBM Champion in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 for over three decades of advocation and thought leadership on the IBM i platform.

Contact Tom at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..