System Display and Search Facility is an MVS-Z/OS utility used for monitoring the System Log with the added ability to also issue control commands (authority permitting).
SDSF is applicable to mainframes running MVS-Z/OS operating systems utilising JES2 (Job Entry Subsystem 2).
SDSF became available in the late 1980's. Originally it was known as Spool Display and Search Facility as the system log is spooled and often referred to as the "spool".
Typically there are two groups of users who use SDSF.
- Those that use it to monitor JOBS and Job output and
- those (Operators/System programmers) who use SDSF to monitor and control aspects of the system.
The first group are often provided alternative tools such as WSF2 (Writer Spool Facility 2) which offloads and saves spool data allowing a far greater historical viewpoint.
Nowadays, there are additionally many tools that complement SDSF for automatically monitoring and controlling the system such as Omegamon.
