SMS provides a trace table for you to use when working with the IBM® Support Center on a problem. The IBM Support Center may request a copy of the SMS trace table. You can obtain this by dumping the contents of the SMS address space to a SYS1.DUMPnn data set by using the DUMP operator command at the time of the failure. The dump options must minimally contain RGN, CSA, and SQA.
The SMS trace table can then be displayed using the IPCS SMSDATA verb. See Storage Management Subsystem IPCS dump formatter (SMSDATA) and Formatting the Storage Management Subsystem trace table for details.
For the SMS address space trace table to be created and active, tracing must be specified by the SETSMS command or by means of member IGDSMSnn in SYS1.PARMLIB. For details, see z/OS DFSMSdfp Storage Administration. Entries in the trace table consist of certain 'events' that occurred during SMS processing. Areas of SMS processing that can be traced are listed under the description of the SELECT parameter of the SETSMS command.
Entries in the trace table can be of two types: ERROR or NONERROR. If a trace table exists, an 'E' record is always written to the table. An 'N' record is written only if you selected that area of SMS processing for tracing and TYPE(ALL) is specified by using the SETSMS operator command or the IGDSMSnn member in SYS1.PARMLIB.