VSAM data set design parameters

Our intention has been to offer an appreciation of VSAM performance sensitivities and to relate those sensitivities to data set design parameters. This has been done in the hope that designers may become more aware of the effects of their choices among those parameters. This discussion has been restricted to VSAM as it applies to IBM operating systems. Effects of paging, the VSAM catalogue, and VSAM multirequest strings — which may be important in some cases — have not been included.