Control Center Gatekeeper for z/OS - syncsort_capacity_management - Latest

This section explains how to deploy the Control Center Gatekeeper data transfer for z/OS data processing to ensure integrity of data at collection time.

As a general principle, Control Center processing only adds data to a database if the dates, times and intervals they contain are newer than the data already processed and do not overlap with any existing data for a given target. This means that if there are missing intervals in data being processed by Control Center it can­not add in that missing data at a later date.

Here are two reasons why data from a z/OS system may contain gaps:

• SMF data for one or more intervals might not have been provided to Acquire, for example if the source system was shut down for a period (e.g a maintenance window), or due to some other operational issue such as a deleted or missing GDG, or undumped SMF data.

• A data transfer issue occurred copying data file from the mainframe to Windows, and the file has become corrupted.

In most cases SMF data is kept for a long period of time, and Acquire could be re-run to re-create the data files without the gaps being present but if Control Center has already processed beyond the gap these files cannot be used to fill in that gap automatically. The only way to fill such gaps is to delete all the data after the gap and have Control Center re-collect and re-process ALL the files from the gap onwards, in order.

To prevent gaps from occurring in the first place, Syncsort™ Capacity Management now has a Gatekeeper facility built into the Control Center collection process for z/OS data when collected through a Windows Network Share. It will suspend file collection (and thus prevent processing) if a gap is detected within or between data files. Only when the gap has been filled, or the user has chosen to manually override the Gatekeeper, will collection and processing continue. The Gatekeeper solution comprises two parts:

1. Acquire for z/OS: under the control of user parameters, stores data to allow gap checking by the Gatekeeper during collection of files by Control Center. The Acquire for z/OS takes two actions if the Gatekeeper parameters are used:

   1. The first record in the file has an id of '0000' and contains information about the data within the file - size, first and last interval, and details of any gaps inside the data. If Gatekeeping is not used (the user chose not to set parameters to say it was), the first record is still created but has an id value of '0099' which is ignored by Control Center
   2. Copying data to where Control Center will collect it each file has a letter 'G' (or 'g') prefix on the file name.

2. An enhanced Control Center collection mechanism that: 

   1. Recognizes Acquire for z/OS files in a Windows share that have a G prefix.
   2. Checks files with a G prefix for potential gaps inside or between files, or data truncation using the details in the record with id '0000'.