How CICS monitoring data is passed to SMF

The various CICS® monitoring class records are written to SMF in different ways.

Performance data records are written to a performance record buffer, which is defined and controlled by CICS, as the records are produced. The performance records are passed to SMF for processing when the buffer is full, when the performance class of monitoring is switched off, and when CICS itself quiesces. When monitoring itself is switched off or when there is an immediate shutdown of CICS, the performance records are not written to SMF and the data is lost. When you switch off monitoring, you can use the NOPERF option on the SET MONITOR command to flush the buffers that contain recorded data for completed tasks and avoid losing the data.

Transaction resource class data records are written to a transaction resource record buffer, which is defined and controlled by CICS, as the records are produced. The transaction resource records are passed to SMF for processing when the buffer is full; when the transaction resource class of monitoring is switched off; and when CICS itself quiesces. When monitoring itself is deactivated or when there is an immediate shutdown of CICS, the transaction resource records are not written to SMF and the data is lost.

Exception records are passed directly to SMF when the exception condition completes. Each exception record describes one exception condition. You can link performance records with their associated exception records by matching the value of the TRANNUM field in each type of record; each contains the same transaction number.

Identity class records are constructed using fields that are written only if the data is available, in a similar way to those fields used in the RACF® SMF records. Unlike other monitoring SMF 110 records, these records are not compressed. The identity records are buffered (one or more identity records are constructed into a single SMF 110 record) to minimize the number of SMF writes. Any unwritten identity data records remaining in the output buffer are recorded either when the monitoring identity class is set to inactive or when CICS shuts down normally.