Introduction to JAL compare facility

A single definition coded in JAL can change the behavior of thousands of jobs. Any changes in such a definition could potentially have a dramatic effect on production work. In the programming world, any changes to a program have to be tested before this program will be used. Your installation JAL definition is no exception.

One way of testing JAL changes is to use the JAL Compare (JALCOMP) feature available in ThruPut Manager. This feature allows the installation to have two JAL definitions loaded at the same time. The Primary JAL definition would define all the job changes as usual. The Secondary JAL definition would be used to simulate job changes without actually doing any of them. This simulation would allow the installation to compare the changes in each job done under the control of Primary JAL to the changes that would have been done to the same job if the Secondary JAL were in control.

The differences in how two JAL definitions are affecting the same job may be recorded by ThruPut Manager as SMF records. The format of the records is described in the Base Product System Programming Guide.

There is now a way to extract the JAL Comparison data from SMF records using the JALCOMP Data Extractor Utility. This section describes how to activate the JAL Compare feature and use the utility. Additionally, it provides some examples of how the extracted data could be used by the installation.


 

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