RMS Expert

This document serves as a user manual for RMS Expert, an intelligent file performance and management tool developed by International Digital Scientific for VAX/VMS System Managers. It describes the theory, installation, and operation of the software, designed for VAX/VMS Version 5.0 or later.

RMS Expert addresses the complexities of managing and tuning VAX/VMS Record Management System (RMS) index files, which are prone to performance degradation due to internal disorganization and fragmentation. It comprises three independent utilities:

1. REVIEW: Analyzes existing RMS index files, reports on their internal structure and parameters, and recommends actions to improve performance (access time or disk utilization). It also predicts the performance gains achievable by using the other utilities.
2. OPTIMIZE: Fine-tunes the internal structures and parameters of RMS index files to achieve optimal disk usage and minimize fragmentation, leading to improved access times. This utility creates a new, optimized copy of the file, requiring temporary disk space and an exclusive file lock during part of its operation.
3. ORGANIZE: Performs "inplace" internal defragmentation of RMS index files. It improves record access throughput and maximizes usable space by eliminating Record Reference Vector (RRV) records (which cause indirection), reclaiming deleted records, freeing empty buckets, and minimizing index levels. This process involves brief write-locks on specific file buckets, allowing concurrent read access during reorganization.

The software is designed with safety in mind, ensuring that index files are not corrupted even if a utility's execution is interrupted. RMS Expert utilities can be run in detached, batch, or interactive modes, and can be managed via DCL commands or a menu-driven interface (REVIEW/SCREEN_MODE). It will not operate on system files or files accessed via Record File Address (RFA). Both REVIEW and ORGANIZE provide detailed reports on file structure, performance improvements, and disk space utilization before and after optimization/reorganization.