VTAM® messages that could potentially flood the operator console can be suppressed by a message flooding prevention facility. This facility recognizes and filters duplicates occurring within a given time span, thus preventing critical information from being buried in a mass of repetitious information.

You can choose which messages are candidates for message flooding prevention by copying, renaming, and modifying VTAM default table (ISTMSFLD) to create your own message-flooding prevention table. Suppression criteria (variable text similarity) and suppression time intervals may be specified for each message in your table, and messages selected for suppression can also be suppressed from the hardcopy log. Message-flooding prevention support also provides the ability to modify a message flooding table dynamically.

For complete information about how to define a message-flooding prevention table, see the z/OS Communications Server: SNA Resource Definition Reference. For information about modifying (MODIFY TABLE) and displaying (DISPLAY TABLE) the message-flooding prevention table, see z/OS Communications Server: SNA Operation.