1. OVERVIEW › 1.2 Reporting and Inquiry Facilities

1.2 Reporting and Inquiry Facilities

The System Reliability Analyzer reporting and inquiry
facilities include MICF Inquiries, Standard Analysis
Reports, and Exception Reports.

Descriptive information is written to the system error
recording data set (for example, SYS1.LOGREC under MVS) for
failures that occur in the system hardware and software, for
statistical information on device usage, and for a number of
events that affect the system environment.  The operating
system software includes modules and routines for detecting
exceptional conditions, attempting recovery where possible,
and for logging the significant details of the conditions on
the error recording data set.

The recorded error data can be analyzed to determine specific
areas of reliability that need more detailed study.  Data on
hard failures, such as unrecoverable machine checks or
permanent errors on devices, can assist in locating and
resolving the failure that caused an error condition to
occur.  Data on soft failures, or failures that were
successfully recovered, can be examined as early indications
of future problems or permanent errors.

Exception Reports allow you to define, capture, and
report on conditions that deviate from the expected norm.

The System Reliability Analysis reports, available under MICF
(CA MICS Information Center Facility) and in batch, can be
classified under four major categories:

    o System Reliability Analysis Reports
    o Software Reliability Analysis Reports
    o Hardware Reliability Analysis Reports
    o Media Reliability Analysis Reports

The CA MICS System Reliability Analyzer provides the
capability to use the MICF and standard SAS language
interface to create ad hoc reports.  CA MICS provides these
interactive capabilities that allow fast response to complex
requests so that users have the requisite information to
manage an IS organization on a daily basis.

    o MICF - MICF is a panel-oriented productivity tool that
      allows you to access information in the CA MICS Data
      Base.  When you define input, selection criteria, and
      report options, MICF dynamically builds an inquiry
      program that executes in either interactive or batch
      mode.  Then, depending on your specific requirements,
      MICF either prints the inquiry report, displays the
      results at your terminal, or catalogs the results for
      later viewing.

    o Standard SAS Language Interface - The CA MICS
      Workstation Facility (MWF) provides an online
      environment that supports the standard SAS language
      interface in both interactive and batch modes.  SAS
      allows easy data manipulation and statistical analysis
      and provides coding facilities for programmers who are
      conducting extensive analysis efforts or designing new
      reports for IS business applications.

Standard Analysis Reports provide concise information in the
form of graphs, tables, charts, or plots, and are run on a
daily weekly, and/or monthly basis as part of the standard
CA MICS processing. These reports summarize hardware and
software problems and help you track hardware and software
reliability.