z/OS Problem Management

This document is designed to help you identify symptoms, and diagnose problems on z/OS, its subsystems, its components, and problems in applications running under the system. It explains the steps to take leading up to the use of IPCS and explains how to avoid soft failures using Predictive Failure Analysis (PFA) and identifying symptoms using Runtime Diagnostics. Using this information, you can:
* Identify symptoms that could lead to a potential problem
* Identify the problem type
* Determine the failing subsystem, component, job, or application
* Collect the correct data needed to diagnose the problem
* Develop a search argument and use it to search problem reporting databases
* Know the correct problem data to collect before reporting the problem to IBM or the independent software vendor.
* Understand the best practices for capturing stand-alone dump.

This information can help you determine why a problem occurred and where a problem occurred; it does not describe how to fix program instructions in your own code.