Have you ever wondered why there was something missing in your job output when you were looking at an active executing job. When you have read this tip I hope you have stopped wondering. If you work on an installation with only one MVS you will have no reason to wonder, but most of us work at installations where many MVS systems are linked together in a so-called SYSPLEX. And it is precisely in a SYSPLEX environment you may wonder about missing job output. I keep writing about missing job output, but it regards all kinds of tasks, namely jobs, TSO sessions and started tasks (typically CICS systems).

When you look at job output from an executing task you most likely use SDSF or SYSVIEW. Either you look at job output using ST/JOBSUM or DA/ACTIVITY. On these screens there is a column telling you which MVS is executing your job. In SYSVIEW this column is called ESYS. In SDSF it is called SYSNAME on the DA screen and ASYS on the ST screen. The last important information is the name of the MVS where you are executing SDSF or SYSVIEW. This name is available in the upper left corner on the DA screen i SDSF. In SYSVIEW it is placed to the right of the text SYSVIEW in the upper left corner both in the ACTIVITY and JOBSUM screens.

If the column containing the MVS name on the line with your job in, holds the same name as the MVS you are logged on to then you will see all job output in the same split second that it is created, for example using a COBOL DISPLAY UPON CONSOLE or a PLI DISPLAY(...). If the two MVS names differ you will see the job output with some delay. This delay varies a lot, but typically it is from several minutes to many hours. The delay is caused by the fact that job output is collected in some buffers internally in each MVS system and are therefore not shared between MVS systems in the same SYSPLEX. These buffers are externalised once in a while which makes the job output visible from all MVS systems in the same SYSPLEX. If you have the patience to wait for your job to complete before you look at the job output this is of course no problem, but if the job output you are looking for is written from at started task the delay can be quite frustrating. Newer versions of z/OS may be configured to share the output buffers. This removes the problem described in this tip.

Fortunately you can look at the job output in both SDSF and SYSVIEW as if you were logged on to the same MVS as your job is executing on. In SDSF you use the command SYSNAME <mvs> where you replace <mvs> with the name of the MVS system where your job is being executed. Now you can use the DA screen to choose your job and see the job output in the same second it is created. In order to return to the original MVS in SDSF you use the SYSNAME command without any parameters. In SYSVIEW you must use the command XSC <mvs>. This command starts a new SYSVIEW session using the specified MVS system. Now you are able to see the job output in both the JOBSUM and the ACTIVITY screens in the same second it is created by your job. You must be aware that it is a brand new SYSVIEW session. This means that the PREFIX you used in the original session is not inherited. This can be quite confusing. To return to the original SYSVIEW session you just terminate the new session in the usual fashion (typically by pressing F3 a suitable amount of times).