For most z/OS system programmers one of the “goto” tools is SDSF.  Some have said a day doesn’t go by without them going into SDSF.  For many non-system programmers they also have access to SDSF but often a small general use subset.  The SDSF user interface is available in a 3270 (green screen) form as well as in a browser based format in z/OSMF.  There is also a REXX programming interface that is heavily used and a much less used JAVA programming API.

Being able to see the processes (address spaces) and what they are doing (DA – Display Active), what resources they are consuming, is a key feature of SDSF.  This data is displayed in tabular form and can be sorted, filtered and otherwise manipulated.  But you can also look at the queues of work arriving and waiting to run (I – Input), work that has completed(S – Status), and the output that work produced as it is waiting to be processed (often printed, using O – Output).   There is a special queue for output or jobs that have completed but are ‘held’ meaning they are there to be seen on request (H – Held).   This was arguably the first thing that the SDSF product showed and is also what most operations and developers use.

Beyond seeing the data you can also manipulate the data.  For example you can see a held job and if you want to get rid of it you can purge it with a single keystroke.  You can also print output if and delete it or even print it and keep it in the held queue.  One the coolest things is SJ, which allows you to look at a job, get the JCL back and edit it and resubmit it.

Beyond this kind of work SDSF lets you look at many other parts of z/OS.  One of my favorite commands is the SYS command which will give you a LOT of information about the system.  If you are running in a sysplex then the SYS command will display one row per system and you can compare them.  There are many more detailed subcommands under SYS that can show you more detail.

In recent releases of SDSF there have been many new primary commands added which you may or may not have access to.  The main menu is a scrollable menu and there are options to show or hide options that you don’t have access to.

What is your favorite part of SDSF?  Do you have suggestions for new capability?  Leave a comment…