SDSF


The System Display and Search Facility component of IBM's mainframe operating system, z/OS, is an interactive user interface that allows users and administrators to view and control various aspects of the mainframe's operation and system resources. Some of the information displayed in SDSF includes Batch job output, Unix processes, scheduling environments, and status of external devices such as printers and network lines. SDSF is primarily used to access the batch and system log files and dumps.

History

When it was a field-developed program offering, SDSF was known as the SPOOL Display and Search Facility The word SPOOL was changed to System when it became a program product in the late 1980s.
With z/OS Release 9 SDSF supports a REXX interface, allowing batch programs to use SDSF facilities. This support includes stem variables containing SDSF-originated information.
Prior to z/OS Release 10, SDSF was only supported for use with JES2 and not JES3, although ISV products from Phoenix Software International and Tone Software were available with similar functionality for JES3. At and beyond z/OS Release 10, SDSF fully supports JES3, including some new commands to display the data/sets and job output for JES3 jobs.
With the release of z/OS V1R13, SDSF came packed with some interesting features like cursor sensitive sort or point and shoot sort
and extensive support for oper logs from Rexx and Java programmed environments.

Features

SDSF is organized as a collection of panels where each panel displays information about a specific aspect of the mainframe's operations. These panels are currently provided:
On the ST panel, SDSF supports the following commands for each batch job. These commands are translated into a JES2 or JES3 command that performs the desired function: