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stansaraczewski · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 12:36 pm Post subject: logging transaction activity

I need to write an application that will be linked to by other applications that update files for the purpose of tracking who did what and when. I'll pass along basic info in a comarea, such as date/time, file id, oper id, and a flag to indicate rewrite, write, or delete. The 'logger' will write to a file which will be saved in a GDG, perhaps weekly, then deleted and redefined.

Does anyone have any suggestions or War Stories ?

kolusu · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 12:42 pm Post subject:

stansaraczewski,

If there is a DB2 access, I suggesting inserting the details into a DB2 table. You can back it up for every month or 3 months depending on the activity.

Kolusu

stansaraczewski · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:08 pm Post subject:

Thank you for your suggestion.

We just replaced DB/2 with Oracle. I think the direction here would be to use a VSAM file. I'm thinking ESDS since it will be written to sequentially.

dbzTHEdinosauer · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 1:19 pm Post subject:

stansaraczewski,

you might want to look into SMF records for this type of activity.
A lot of this type of information is already 'loggable' by IBM operating system software.
If you research the SMF documentation - MVS System Management Facilities (SMF) you might find the info available,
or request you systems people to start the logging.

Maybe DCOLLECT would also suffice. DFSORT has some prototypes of extracts on their webpage - kolusu or Frank would be the one to ask about this. (my apologies Frank & Kolusu)

Since you have to write the application, I am guessing that you are not a systems group person. Talk to those guys also.

As well as CICS has all kinds of logs available, this may also be of help.

Only drawback I see to using system logging,
you could end up with the situation where you are responsible for a systems wide audit application.

On the other hand, you don't have to modify any of your current running applications to enable your 'private' logging facility.

I will PM expat and CICS_Guy to drop by this thread and provide some ideas,
or debunk my suggestions.
_________________
Dick Brenholtz
American living in Varel, Germany

stansaraczewski · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 3:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks 'dinosaur' -

I was a CICS admin for years, but returned to applications since there is a scarcity of m/f jobs. On another board a 'exec cics write journalname' was suggested... so I do have interesting solutions to research.

expat · Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 5:04 am Post subject:

It may be worth talking to your storage & capacity people as it is a possibility that they will already have processed and analysed the SMF data on a daily basis. If so, they may not have exactly what you need but will probably be 90% of the way there. If they have nothing it probably would not be too large a task to add some SMF 15 + catalog record processing to give you a raw SAS file at least.
_________________
If it's true that we are here to help others,
then what exactly are the others here for ?

Jamylady · Beginner Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 68 Topics: 22

Hi,
With the increased data privacy and HIPPA legislation, the company that I am working has decided to capture the log of all activities on our CICS application.
Our CICS application basically supports the following functions
1) Browse a policy
2) Add a policy
3) Print - submit a request for the printed form during nightly run
4) Update
5) Delete
6) Reinstate

I need to capture all these activities in a DB2 table.
The proposed solution is to update the current programs to enable the capturing of the log. But I am sure there could be some other way to achieve this with minimal code change.
This application passes data between programs using a COMMAREA and it is generic to all programs. This COMMAREA contains all the details such as userid, the action being taken (such as browse, edit, delete etc), the key for record being processed etc.
Is there any way to capture this COMMAREA based on the change to a particular filed in this COMMAREA?
Appreciate if you could give some idea on this.
Thanks
JA

kolusu · Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 11:19 am Post subject:

Jamylady,

Take a look at this

https://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/cicsts/v2r2/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.cics.ts22.doc/dfhea/dfhe53l.htm

Kolusu

Jamylady · Beginner Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 68 Topics: 22

Thankskolusu,
i did went thru the url, frankly speaking, it was all Greek to me! I am not sure what to look and where to start bonk

Let me do some more digging. But if anyone already has used this, then any hint would be useful.
Note. I also happened to see another URL where they are talking about event processing in CICS. But this is using Event Binding Editor which I don't have any clue again!
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/tutorials/0909_wang/index.html
Thank you
JA

Jamylady · Beginner Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 68 Topics: 22

OK, I think I understand what they are talking about evet processing. But that would work only with CICS V4.1 which we do not have at the moment.
Thanks
Jimmy