Program Information › Program Freezer › Freezing Programs

Freezing Programs

CA Auditor lets you freeze programs, source programs, load modules, and libraries. You can also freeze LPA modules and other storage areas such as SVCs and system exits to detect core zaps or changes in IPL parameters. If you change the name or location of a program after you freeze it, you can change the information in the freezer database to reflect this. This way, you can continue to monitor changes to a program when its name or location changes.

When CA Auditor freezes a program, it categorizes the program by type and collects information relevant to that type. For example, the information that CA Auditor collects for a source program differs from what it collects for a library. This process lets CA Auditor provide you with a more detailed explanation of what caused the change to the program. Rather than informing you only that a change occurred, CA Auditor tells you that the library has new members or that the location of the program module changed. Because multiple changes to a program can make it difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the change, CA Auditor gives you its “best guess” of what happened to cause the change.

CA Auditor can store the results of up to ten changes to a program. This lets you monitor a program over time and obtain a history for the program. Using this information, you can better understand how efficiently your data center operates and how effective your change control procedures are. You can also gather data about possible security exposures and violations. Using this detailed information, you can investigate further and discover how a program was changed, who changed it, and why it was changed.

If you have the storage space to keep a secure copy of each program, you can watch changes even more closely. The Program Freezer facility provides you with a quick way to learn which programs you need to compare, eliminating the headache of trying to run comparisons on everything.