Although managing data storage requires many different tasks to be performed, the ability to generate meaningful reports probably remains as the most common of them. Become familiar with the wide range of reporting facilities that CA Disk provides.
First there is the set of standard reports, which display data fields proven through the years to be highly relevant. These are fixed format reports, that is, reports in which the contents and format of the output have been predefined. They display data obtained from volume VTOC entries and catalog entries, and are commonly produced via batch execution. When combined with the select and exclude capabilities of the command language (DSCL), you have a high degree of flexibility in obtaining just the information you need.
A common complaint in trying to manage VSAM data sets is that even the report information is completely different. To help you in this regard, three of the standard reports MVDICT, SVDICT and MAPPER produced for non-VSAM data sets from VTOC information are also produced for VSAM clusters from information in the catalog. The catalog-based reports are formatted identically to the VTOC-based reports; however, the results can differ for multivolume data sets. VTOC-based reports will show only the volumes specified in the selection criteria, whereas the catalog-based reports will show all volumes the data set resides on even if the primary volume is the only volume selected. Additional reports CLDATA and CIARPT are also provided that analyze and display information, which is indeed unique to VSAM.
Five of the standard reports, ALLOCS, ATTRBS, DISTRS, FREESP, and LAYOUT, are considered volume-level reports. These reports do not perform data set level processing. By eliminating this overhead, performance for these reports is greatly improved.
One more category of reporting is available through the ISPF support. This online reporting facility gives you the ability to actually define your own report(s). All of the possible reporting fields are displayed for you on the ISPF panel(s), from which you choose the ones that are needed. You also get to specify the print position for each field, sub and grand totals desired, and multiple sorting fields in ascending or descending sequence. When you finish defining the report, you can execute it interactively (online), or submit a batch job to produce it. Full details regarding these reports are contained in the Overview of ISPF Online Reporting Facility and the ISPF help text for the function itself.
The material presented in the remainder of this section applies to the standard reports obtained via batch, and to those parameters used by the ISPF online reports, which can also be executed in batch. (Use of the ISPF-related parameters requires that you have previously defined the needed data by making use of the online reporting option.)
Requests for report data can be made in two ways: by naming specific data sets (explicit requests) or by selecting certain data sets while scanning the VTOCs or catalogs (implicit requests). The implicit reporting function makes use of the DSCL commands to scan volumes and select or exclude the appropriate data sets. Explicit requests use the FIND command, which is also presented in this section.
Multiple reports can be generated during a single scan of a set of volumes. Records for each type of desired report are generated during the scan phase, are sorted into the appropriate sequence, and then printed by the report writer component of CA Disk.
Performance notes:
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