Record Type 88 (58) — System Logger Data

Record type 88 is produced in response to ENF signal 37, which indicates that the SMF global recording interval has ended. Each record reports system logger activity for one log stream or structure. Record values from multiple systems can be summed to give the sysplex view of system logger activity.

Record type 88 has the following subtypes; each contains a header and product section and sections unique for each record:

Subtype 1 - Records log stream activity.
You can use system logger activity data to identify high or low users of system logger services. System logger event data indicates conditions that cause system logger services to be unavailable, such as the STRUCTURE FULL condition for a coupling facility log stream. You can also use system logger activity data to perform capacity planning or configuration analysis.
The structure-related data in subtype 1 allows you to analyze input/output to interim storage for a log stream in terms of one input stream and two output streams. The input is the count of bytes written to interim storage (SMF88SWB). The two outputs are the count of the number of bytes deleted from interim storage under two scenarios:
- Bytes deleted before the data was offloaded to DASD log data sets. (SMF88SIB).
- Bytes deleted after data was offloaded to DASD log data sets (SMF88SAB).
If the first output count is high and the second is low, system logger is successfully using interim storage to avoid the I/O incurred by offloading to DASD log data sets.
Subtype 11 - Records coupling facility structure alter activity, which is the changes to the entry-to-element ratio made by system logger for coupling facility structures associated with coupling facility log streams. This information allows you to monitor how system logger is managing the entry-to-element ratio for coupling facility structures.

Macro to Symbolically Address Record Type 88: The SMF record mapping macro to symbolically address record type 88 is IXGSMF88. The macro is suppled in SYS1.MACLIB.

For additional information about system logger see System Logger accounting.