AppliedOperations21 min
SMF in practice: answering questions with SMF
Audit, security, Finance and capacity teams all ask questions that SMF records can answer. Turn a question into the right record types and time window, extract them, read them and report what they show.
What you will be able to do
- Turn a business question into SMF record types, systems and a time window
- Extract records with IFASMFDP or IFASMFDL and read the record header and sections
- Work through common investigations and report findings carefully
Lessons
- Turning a question into an SMF searchMost SMF work starts with someone else's question: who deleted this, which job used the CPU, who tried to read payroll data.
- Inside an SMF recordEvery SMF record starts with a standard header: its length, its type, the time and date it was written and the system that wrote it, and usually a subtype.
- Investigations and reporting what you findThree investigations come up again and again: a data set that disappeared, a job that used too much CPU, and failed access to sensitive data.
Track your progress and earn a certificate.
Free account, 48 quiz questions for this subject.