Using dumps in problem determination

You have the choice of two different types of CICS® dump to help you with problem determination. They are the transaction dump, of transaction-related storage areas, and the CICS system dump, of the entire CICS region.

The type of dump to use for problem determination depends on the nature of the problem. In practice, the system dump is often more useful, because it contains more information than the transaction dump. You can be reasonably confident that the system dump has captured all the evidence you need to solve your problem, but it is possible that the transaction dump might have missed some important information.

The amount of CICS system dump data that you could get is potentially very large, but that need not be a problem. You can leave the data on the system dump data set, or keep a copy of it, and format it selectively as you require.

You can control the dump actions taken by CICS, and also what information the dump output contains. There are two aspects to controlling dump action:
  1. Setting up the dumping environment, so that the appropriate dump action is taken when circumstances arise that might cause a dump to be taken.
  2. Causing a dump to be taken. Both users and CICS can issue requests for dumps to be taken.

For information about using dumps to solve FEPI problems, see FEPI dump.