ASG-JOB/SCAN, a JCL validation and standards enforcement product, is specifically designed to help single LPAR data centers (with COBOL or Assembler expertise for JCL standards programs) operate an error-free production JCL environment.

Maintaining the Job Control Language (JCL) throughout its lifecycle is vital to any IT operation, but especially important when running mission-critical applications driven by z/OS JCL. Using ASG-JOB/SCAN, the operator can eliminate costly reruns, meet service level agreements, automatically enforce site standards, reduce backlog at production turnover, and improve the overall JCL maintenance cycle.

If your organization’s data resides on a single LPAR, ASG-JOB/SCAN will validate the production JCL – processing the entire JCL jobstream, resolving backward references, substituting symbolics, applying overrides, and then evaluating each statement for accuracy according to standard z/OS syntax rules.

The JCL standards prompter of ASG-JOB/SCAN can assist in the creation of a JCL standards program tailored to site-specific requirements. This provides an easy way to create and maintain the JCL standards manual online.

ASG-JOB/SCAN's JCL change facility provides the capability to implement intelligent changes, which is especially useful for new naming conventions and production turnover. Changes, additions, and deletions can be global or based on user-specified conditions.

ASG-JOB/SCAN can easily be integrated into your organization’s automated JCL promotion process. JCL members that contain errors or that do not follow site-specific standards will not be promoted into production libraries.