The CICS internal trace is a circular buffer in which the oldest trace entries are continuously being overwritten with new entries due to ongoing activity in CICS. If a problem occurs in CICS, trace events relating to recent problems in CICS will persist inside the CICS internal trace for a period before they are eventually overwritten by newer entries. If we are fast enough, we can capture those trace events by taking a copy of the trace table. In C\Prof, this process is called snap.
To take a snap of the CICS internal trace, complete the following steps:
- If required, click the home button (
) to return to Region overview. - Find the CICS region or group you want to snap.
- Click the snap button (
). If you are using the table layout, you may need to click the expand button (
) to find it. To perform a snap on a group in the table layout, select the Perform action on all group members check box.
Tip: Hover over the snap button () on the region card or in the table view to see the details of the last auxiliary trace data set you have captured.
Analyzing the results of snap
If successful, the C\Prof collection server will capture the CICS internal trace and write the resulting output to an auxiliary trace data set. To analyze auxiliary trace data sets created by snap, use the C\Prof ISPF dialog. Auxiliary trace data sets produced by C\Prof are also compatible with the IBM-supplied trace utility print program (DFHTU700).
Tip: Configure your automation tools to automatically trigger a C\Prof snapshot when problems are detected in CICS. For more information, see Automatic problem capture with event-driven snap.