SMF (System Management Facilities) is one of the many basic parts of z/OS that make the mainframe platform unique. SMF collects data from almost every z/OS component; data which is used by performance analysts, chargeback staff, capacity planners, security analysts, communications staff, CICS administrators, storage administrators, DB2 administrators, and many others. But it's often left up to the system programmer to manage and control access to this sometimes disparate collection of data.
Cheryl Watson has been working with SMF data since its beginning over 40 years ago. If you're new to SMF, are still writing to SYS1.MANx data sets, or simply want a refresher and recommendations for successful practices using SMF, this session can help. Cheryl covers topics such as: what is SMF?, how can you manage and control it?, tricks with the dump program control statements, reasons to use the SMF logger; which are the most important records?, which are the largest records?, and how to reduce the volume of data.