Dumps produced by an MVS™ system fall into two categories:

• Formatted dumps: SYSABEND and SYSUDUMP ABEND dumps and SNAP dumps. IPCS cannot be used with formatted dumps.
• Unformatted dumps: SVC dumps, SYSMDUMP ABEND dumps, and stand-alone dumps. IPCS formats and analyzes unformatted dumps.

When you submit unformatted dump data sets to IPCS, it simulates dynamic address translation (DAT) and other storage management functions to recreate the system environment at the time of the dump. IPCS reads the unformatted dump data and translates it into words. For example, IPCS can identify the following:

• Jobs with error return codes
• Resource contention in the system
• Control block overlays.

IPCS also helps your own dump analysis. For example, you can:

• Format control blocks. IPCS inserts field names into the output and displays the data in columns by field.
• Browse unformatted dump storage. IPCS allows you to easily follow pointers to other locations in the dump. It also retains addresses of certain locations in the dump.
• Reduce the size of a stand-alone dump. You can reduce the size of a stand-alone dump as you transfer it from tape to a direct access storage device (DASD) for IPCS processing.