SDSF - System Display Search facility

System Display Search facility Overview:

SDSF is abbrivated as 'System Display Search facility'.

Job in Mainframe:

MVS processes the set of tasks to be accomplished together as a job. A job is a series of JCL statements (we will look about JCL's in future sessions). Each Job is identified by a Job name. Each task in a job is performed in a Job or JCL step by using programs and other information like dataset, devices or other system resources the job needs. These JCL steps are executed in sequence.

For example, consider a job to print a file based on Employee ID order, this job will be performed in two steps as follows:

Step 1: Sort the File based on Employee Id
Step 2: Print the File

This job will have two steps JCL with a program accompanying each step. When you submit a job to MVS system for processing, the job is treated as whole. The job begins with the execution of the first program and continues until the last program has finished, or until an error condition occurs. We call job ending with an error condition as 'Abend'. All these JOB execution processes are managed by JES subsystem of MVS.

SDSF (System Display Search facility):

This is a product from IBM to monitor, manage, and control your MVS/JES2 system. The following actions can be performed with the SDSF utility.

Control job processing (hold, release, cancel, and purge jobs).
Monitor jobs while they are running.
Browse jobs without printing.
Control job classes.
Control printers, punches, readers and initiators.
Control network lines and nodes.
Control spool offload devices.
Display and control WLM scheduling environments and resources.
Issue JES2 and MVS commands that affect jobs SDSF gives immediate, up-to-date, sysplex-wide information about jobs waiting to be processed or in execution, such as:
- The status, class, priority, date and time of a specific job.
- All jobs on a specific queue, such as the input or held output queue.
- Detail for a job no matter where it is in the sysplex.
- Reasons a job might be delayed.
- Output from a job as it is created.

Note: Execution of any command will show the output for the authorization level that you have on the output queue as defined in the RACF.

Input Queue:

Use the primary command to view the Input Queue., with no parameters, display input jobs in all the classes. Some valid syntax for the command is given as follows:

IAC H Displays jobs in classes A and C that are held.
IA NH Displays jobs in class A that are not held.
I$ Displays the input queue for all TSO users

Status Queue:

Let's now discuss how to look into the job output and interpret the spool information. Type ST in the SDSF panel to view the status of jobs, started tasks and logged on users on the JES2 queues. Any job that is not purged can be viewed here and active jobs are highlighted.

Give a look into the fields on this panel:

JOBNAME: JES2 Job name. This is defined in the job card of the execution JCL.
TYPE: Type of address space: job, started task, or TSO user.
JNUM: JES2 Job number.
JOBID:JES2 Job ID, or work ID.
OWNER: User ID of job creator.
PRTY: JES2 Job queue priority.
QUEUE: JES2 Queue name for the job.
C JES2: Input class.
POS: Position in the JES2 queue.
SAFF: System affinity from JES2 (if any).
ASYS: JES2 Active system ID (if the job is active).
STATUS: One or more of the following:.
DUP: (temporary hold because the job name duplicates a job already in the System).
HOLD: (held).
PROT:(protected).
ARMELEM: (job is defined to ARM), or ARMREST (job is awaiting ARM restart).

SDSF - Primary Commands:

The following are the most widely used commands on the Status panel:

FIND: Job name search for a job name.
SELECT: Job name and jobid temporarily limit jobs by job name and jobid.
SET DISPLAY: Show settings for PREFIX, DEST, SORT, and so on.
SORT: Column A Sort based on a column, in ascending order.
OWNER: Limit jobs displayed by owning user ID. You must be authorized to usethis command. Useful when you want to display only your job outputs.
PREFIX: Limit jobs displayed by job name or netmail ID.
Example:
- PREFIX IEB: Displays only jobs with the name IEB.
- PREFIX IEB*: Displays all jobs that begin with IEB.

SDSF - Line Commands:

The following are the most widely used line commands on the Status panel:

H: Hold a running Job.
A: Release a Job on Hold.
C: Cancel a Job.
P: Cancel a job and purge the output.
?: Display the output of a job dataset-wise.
S: Display the entire job output.
O: Move the job to the Output Queue.
XDC: Write the spool contents to a dataset.

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