The System Display and Search Facility (SDSF) feature of IBM mainframes running z/OS

Z/OS

z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for mainframe computers, produced by IBM. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string of MVS versions.Starting with earliest:*OS/VS2 Release 2 through Release 3.8...

 allows users and administrators to be able to view and control various aspects of the mainframe's operation. Batch job output, status of running Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 processes, system information, workload scheduling, and log files can be accessed through SDSF.

Features

Some of the options available are:

• LOG: To see the current log of system activity.
• DA: "Display Active" or running processes.
• I: Input Queue - shows jobs waiting execution.
• H: Jobs on HOLD - either waiting to be released into Input or Output or actual copies of job JCL (Job Control Language
  Job Control Language
  Job Control Language is a scripting language used on IBM mainframe operating systems to instruct the system on how to run a batch job or start a subsystem....
  
  ) or previously executed jobs.
• ST: Displays current status of all jobs
• PR: Displays printers.
• INIT: Displays Initiators (areas where jobs execute or run).
• O: Output Queue
• LINE: Network Job Entry (NJE) Lines
• SR: System Requests
• MAS: Members in a MAS (Multiple Access Spool)
• JC: Job Classes
• PS: z/OS UNIX Processes
• RES: WLM (WorkLoad Manager) Resources
• ENC: Enclaves
• SE: Scheduling Environments
• PUN: Punches
• RDR: Readers
• NODE: NJE (Network Job Entry) Nodes
• SO: Spool offload
• SP: Spool volumes
• RM: Resource monitor
• CK: Health checker
• ULOG: User session log

History

SDSF was originally known as SPOOL

Spooling

In computer science, spool refers to the process of placing data in a temporary working area for another program to process. The most common use is in writing files on a magnetic tape or disk and entering them in the work queue for another process. Spooling is useful because devices access data at...

 Display and Search Facility - when it was a field-developed program offering. The word SPOOL was changed to System when it became a program product in the late 1980s.

With z/OS

Z/OS

z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for mainframe computers, produced by IBM. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn followed a string of MVS versions.Starting with earliest:*OS/VS2 Release 2 through Release 3.8...

 Release 9 SDSF supports a REXX

REXX

REXX is an interpreted programming language that was developed at IBM. It is a structured high-level programming language that was designed to be both easy to learn and easy to read...

 interface, allowing batch programs to use SDSF facilities. This support includes stem variables containing SDSF-originated information.

Prior to z/OS Release 10, SDSF was only supported for use with JES2 and not JES3, although ISV

ISV

The initialism ISV may refer to:* Internal security vehicle* Independent software vendor* International scientific vocabulary* Cardiff International Sports Village* International Standard Version of the Bible* International Student Volunteers...

 products from Phoenix Software International and Tone Software are available with similar functionality for JES3. At and beyond z/OS Release 10, SDSF now fully supports JES3, with some new commands (JDS and ODS) to display the data/sets and job output for JES3 jobs.

External links

• IBM System Display and Search Facility