Customization Tools

Customization Dialog

The Customization Dialog is an ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility) application that performs a number of actions upon your Policy Databases (PDBs). You also edit the data within the PDBs. The following actions are available to you when working with a Policy Database. With the listed actions, you can construct and fine-tune an automation model for your systems.

• Create a new empty database, or one from templates, called add-on policies
• Create and edit the individual entries within your database
• Build the configuration files from the data in your database
• Perform updates with a text or flat file
• Import data from other databases or from add-on policies
• Import data into your database from the Discovery Tool

Add-on Policies

Automation Control provides an add-on or sample policy that you can use as a basis to start your automation model. You have some options for creating your automation model.

• Start with a populated add-on policy and review it to change the definitions to match your own systems
• Start with a blank system and use the discovery tool to get your model started
• Start with a blank model and create your entire model through the editor

While all three approaches have their advantages, for your first model it is recommended that you use an add-on policy.

The Discovery Tool

The Discovery tool contains a probe that captures data about the address spaces that are active on a system when it is run. An analysis job then reviews the captured data and maps it to resources that are known to Automation Control. Where it finds a match it outputs a set of records. Use the set of records to import the definition into a Policy Database through the Customization Dialog. Tune and guide its mapping from the discovered data to the known data and you expand the set of recognized resources with your own definitions.

While the discovery tool can provide a basic automation model for a system quickly, you must learn the basics of using the dialog to edit the data manually. Manual editing is required to complete the models the Discovery Tool produces and to expand the things it can discover.