Ask The Expert: EMC Mainframe Grab Tool

This Ask the Expert discussion is now open for questions. We look forward to your participation in this discussion on the new EMC Mainframe Grab tool.

Regards,

Mark

Mark, thank you for opening this discussion.  EMCMGRAB is a mainframe tool to help collect diagnostic data and automatically ftp it to EMC.  It was originally built for MSC environments but is being expanded.  During the life of the Ask The Expert session, I am available to provide assistance with any installation or customization questions.  I am also here to listen to your feedback and enhancement requests.  We would like your feedback to help make this tool useful as possible.

Jeff

Hi Brian,

Currently this does not support any specific DLm commands. The initial intent of EMCMGRAB was to collect data for SRDF/A sites that were down in order to expedite the problem determination and get them up and running as fast as possible. If you have any ideas or suggestions I would be happy to discuss them with you. I have attached a copy of the EMCMGRAB user manual.

Jeff

Hi Jeff, Hoping this also supports EMC DLm (Disk Library for Mainframe)?  Is there more information/documentation available we can view?

Thanks,

Brian Kithcart

Mainframe SE 

One of the advantages in using EMCMGRAB to collect data for problem determination is that it will issue the commands that level 2 believes are necessary to help resolve the current issue.  It relieves the user from writing down a series of commands, executing them, collecting the data and sending it to EMC.  EMCMGRAB will issue the necessary commands based on your configuration.  EMCMGRAB will also collect the SCF log and trace datasets.  It then will terse the data and automatically ftp it to EMC.

EMCMGRAB is an easy tool to install.  It can be installed in under 5 minutes and customized in less than 10 minutes.  The installation of EMCMGRAB consists of a TSO RECEIVE against a file to create a PDS that contains 3 members.  The first is a REXX exec named EMCMGRAB.  This is the code that runs the process.  The second is a parm member named GRABPARM and the third is sample JCL named GRABJCL.  To customize EMCMGRAB the JCL, GRABJCL  has to be modified to add a jobcard, point to your SCF, HC and if applicable CG parm members, update the STEPLIB to point to your SCF loadlib , update SYSPROC to point to the dataset that contains EMCMGRAB and if applicable update SCF$xxxx DD statement.  GRABPARM may have to be modified as it contains file allocation parameters (SMS classes or volser), a SYSOUT class and optionally MSC group filtering information.    Once this is completed, the only change necessary before running EMCMGRAB is to supply the SR number in the JCL.

One of the questions that I get frequently asked deals with SRDF/A.  EMCMGRAB was build for MSC environments and it is run it against a SRDF/A environment that is not running MSC, the information collected is limited.  Providing full data collection for SRDF/A is is on the roadmap but there is a work around.  EMCMGRAB allows you to concatenate the parm files.  In your PDS build a dummy MSC definition such as

MSC_GROUP_NAME=DUMMY1     

MSC_ACTIVATE_MS             

MSC_INCLUDE_SESSION=1AC4,(34)

MSC_WEIGHT_FACTOR=0         

MSC_GROUP_END  

An explanation of the parameters can be found in the Host Component manual.   Concatenate this to the HCPARM DD statement.  EMCMGRAB will process this information as if there was a valid MSC environment and provide a full set of data for SRDF/A .

This Ask the Expert Event is now concluded. It will be locked now and very shortly turned over as a regular discussion.

Thanks to Jeffrey for providing the information here and to those who looked in and found it useful.

Best regards,

Mark