Command flow collector

The CICS® IA command flow collector uses CICS® user journals or logstreams, to store captured data. The logstreams can be created as coupling facility logstreams or DASD only logstreams.

The CICS® IA command flow collector can be used in single-user mode or multi-user mode. The single-user mode was designed for systems programmers to capture the command flow of a transaction in chronological order and to view the TCB modes that are used by each command to assist with threadsafe analysis. In CISC IA 5.1 support was introduced for multiple users. To support this feature, the logstream must be shared by multiple users. When you create the logstream, you must review four values:
AUTODELETE
If you want to give access to multiple users, set this value to YES.
If you want to restrict the usage to a single user, set this value to NO.
This value can be set in the configuration exec.
RETPD
This value is the retention period, in days, for the data to be written into the logstream.
For multiple users set the value to the number of days you want users to keep data in the logstream before it is offloaded t to the CICS® IA GDG data sets.
For a single user, you can set this value to 0. For single user usage CICS® IA supplies a sample job, found in SCIUSAMP.CICS(CIUJLDEL) so that you can delete data from the logstream when required.
This value can be set in the configuration exec.
HIGHOFFLOAD and LOWOFFLOAD
Data from a logstream can be offloaded to DASD data sets when the logstream use, in the coupling facility or the staging data set, reaches the HIGHOFFLOAD limit. The amount of data that is offloaded is determined by the LOWOFFLOAD limit.
The recommendations for user journals are different from the system log. There is no requirement to retain logged data in the coupling facility structure. Due to the typical use of such data, you might need only a small structure and offload the data rapidly to DASD.
If this is your requirement, default HIGHOFFLOAD to 80 and LOWOFFLOAD to 0. CICS® IA uses these values as defaults.

If you want to define the logstream in a coupling facility, you must provide a CF STRUCTURE name. You can create a structure specifically for CICS® IA or use a general one that is already defined. You can use a CF structure that is created for User Journals. For example, LOG_USERJRNL_001.

The data in the logstream is offloaded into the CICS® IA generation data group files. If you are using the Command Flow collector in multi-user mode then, it is recommended that you create a GDG definition job for each user. CICS® IA sample job SCIUSAMP.CICS(CIUJCLCG) is provided to create the GDG files for each user. The sample job SCIUSAMP.CICS(CIUJLCPY) is provided to offload from the shared logstream to the individual users GDG data sets.

Security considerations

For information about how to set up RACF security for CICS IA, see CICS IA security.