REXX To Parse Master Log

This article is about an ISPF PANEL REXX user interface that i have developed to parse Master log job and produce various reports based on selection in a predefined tabular format.

Purpose:

DBA's might often check master log data to detect abnormalities. Master log in it's default format with numerous messages is hard to read & analyze for a human mind while looking for any particular message occurrences. Hence in order to ease the readability, examine log data & analyze the trend focusing only on particular messages in a tabular format this can be used & thus developed.

User Interface ISPF Panel can be invoked by a TSO command (for example TSO DBAT05).

Features:

1. With the selection of Lock Escalation (or) Deadlock & Timeout (or) Resource Unavailability etc., reports available as panel options, respective predefined tabular format report is generated in to output file.
2. Batch process as a started task reads the master log from last line previously scanned and inserts the formatted report in to a DB2 table.
3. Default time indication "hh.mm.ss" for each input message will be converted to a timestamp indication "yyyy.mm.dd.hh.mm.ss" in the report by detecting the date of occurrence. Thus the user will have a clear vision when the message has occurred.
4. User can type message-id in the panel input MESSAGE filed to generate log report of respective input message occurrences filtering out other numerous messages recorded in the master log.
5. Multiple messages can be passed as input using INPUT DSN panel field to produce log report with respective input messages from the master log filtering out unwanted message logs.
6. Parsed master log data based on inputs provided will be generated in to file specified in OUTPUT DSN.

Different ways of invoking this REXX process called DBAT05:

• Panel Mode : TSO DBAT05
• Online Mode : TSO DBAT05 ssid msgid
• Batch?Mode : %DBAT05 ssid msgid 'venkat.output' batch

Sample format of Resource Unavailability Report:

Thus by parsing master log with above features, predefined tabular format report can be generated for DBA analysis or the data can be maintained in a DB2 table for historical research of log messages.

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Thanks,
Kajuluri Venkata Ashok,
z/OS Mainframe DB2 DBA.