Audience
This course is for programmers, systems analysts, systems programmers, operations support and others who need to understand and code JCL within a z/OS environment. It is especially useful for operations and support staff who are required to analyse job failures and restart them with minimal supervision.
Prerequisites
Delegates should have a basic understanding of the operating environment and operating system functions (covered in our z/OS for Beginners course), and be familiar with TSO/ISPF (taught in our z/OS TSO/ISPF Workshop).
Duration
3 days. Hands on.
NOTE: This course can be combined with our z/OS Job Control Language (JCL) - Advanced course to produce a comprehensive five day event. Please see z/OS Job Control Language (JCL) - Basic and Advanced, or contact us, for more information.
Course Objectives
This course provides an introduction to z/OS JCL and the impact of SMS. It contains 31 hands on exercises.
On completion of this course, delegates will be able to:
- Code JCL to perform general tasks within the z/OS system.
- Understand the Job listings and associated messages.
- Diagnose and resolve JCL problems.
- Analyse Job failures, correct and restart jobs.
- Code JOB, EXEC, and DD statements.
- Create data sets of different types.
- Improve programmer efficiency and reduce program test time.
- Decrease the number of job failures.
Course Content
Introduction to JCL
Evolution of JCL
JCL syntax
Statement types
Operand types
JCL Error points
Comprehension quiz
6 JCL error comprehension exercises
JOB Statement
Influences on the JOB statement
CLASS and its role in JOB selection
GROUP
JOBRC
MSGCLASS and output affected
MSGLEVEL
NOTIFY
PASSWORD
REGION
MEMLIMIT
TIME
TYPRUN
USER
Mentioned but not discussed in detail:
• Accounting Information
• BYTES
• CARDS
• LINES
• PAGES
• PERFORM
• Programmers Name
• PRTY
Comprehension quiz
3 practical exercises
EXEC Statement
Influences on the EXEC statement
PGM / PROC
COND
PARM
REGION
TIME
Comprehension quiz
4-5 practical exercises
DD Statement Basics
Influences on the DD statement
DDNAMES sources:
• User programs
• Utilities
Reserved DDNAMES:
• z/OS
• JES2
In-stream data sets:
• *
• DATA
• DLM
Spooled data sets (SYSOUT)
DSN:
• Permanent data sets
• Temporary data sets
DISP
Comprehension quiz
3 practical exercises
Using Data Sets
Data set organisations (DSORG):
• Non-VSAM types
• VSAM types
Defining a new permanent data set:
• LRECL
• RECFM
• BLKSIZE
• SPACE
• UNIT
• VOL
Defining a new cartridge data set:
• EXPDT
• RETPD
• LABEL
Defining a temporary data set for this step
Defining a temporary data set for another step
Referencing a previous temporary data set
Comprehension quiz
5 practical exercises
Impact of SMS
DATACLAS
MGMTCLAS
STORCLAS
AVGREC
LIKE
REFDD
Comprehension quiz
2 practical exercises
JCL Miscellany
RESTART
RD
Concatenated data sets
Deferred data sets
DUMMY data sets:
• DUMMY
• DSN=NULLFILE
Backward references
OUTPUT statement
Comprehension quiz
3 practical exercises