Patent ID: 8478966

Claim:
A computer program product for executing a machine instruction in a central processing unit, the computer program product comprising: a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising: obtaining a machine instruction for execution, the machine instruction being defined for computer execution according to a computer architecture, the machine instruction comprising: an opcode field identifying a query sampling information instruction, the query sampling information instruction used to provide information about a central processing unit (CPU) measurement sampling facility used to capture at least one of basic sampling data relating to processing of a central processing unit or diagnostic sampling data; and a first field identifying a general register, the contents of which are added to the contents of a second field to form a second operand address; and executing the machine instruction, the executing comprising: placing information about the central processing unit (CPU) measurement sampling facility in an information block designated by the second operand address of the instruction, the information comprising a sampling interval value and a field indicating sampling is active.