Creating SMF Data Sets

You should create at least two SMF data sets to store the system and job-related information that SMF collects. SMF data sets should be RACF-protected. Each one is identified by a 1-44 character data set name.

SMF data-gathering routines fill the data sets one at a time. While the gathering routines write records on one data set, SMF can write out or clear the others. SMF continues to write records while it can find an empty inactive data set when the active data set becomes full (see Using SMFPRMxx parameters).

You can use the DEFINE command of the access methods services utility to create the data sets after system installation (see Using DEFINE to Create SMF Data Sets). Allocate each SMF data set as a single-extent VSAM cluster on a single volume and catalog it in the master catalog. Do not specify secondary space for any of the cluster's components. Specify the same control interval size for all SMF data sets that a particular system will use.

You can specify the data sets to be used for SMF recording on the DSNAME parameter in the SMFPRMxx parmlib member. In a multisystem environment, you can use system symbols to allow each system to generate unique SMF data set names from a single definition, as explained in the other topics.