The customer can choose to allow IFAURP to manage the control statements and SMF data processed by each execution of IFAURP, or can choose to manage both themselves. IBM® recommends that the customer use IFAURP to manage the control statements and SMF data.

The customer uses IFAURP to manage the control statements and SMF data by always producing an output history file (SYSHOUT) and using that file as input (SYSHIN) to the next execution of IFAURP. When executing IFAURP in this manner, the only control statements that are required for each execution are new control statements that haven't already been used in a previous execution of IFAURP that ended successfully (with a condition code of 00 or 04). The SMF records supplied via SMFDATA are, likewise, only those SMF records not already processed in a previous execution of IFAURP that ended with a condition code of 00 or 04. If the same records are supplied a second time, they will be excluded from processing as duplicate records. Because IFAURP uses the history file to manage the control statements and SMF data, the customer need only pass the control statements and SMF data to one successful execution of IFAURP to have both managed and used in future executions of IFAURP as appropriate. SMF data older than twenty-four months is automatically purged from the history file.

The customer can assume the responsibility for explicitly managing both the control statements and the SMF type 89 records by omitting the history files (using DUMMY for both SYSHIN and SYSHOUT DD statements). Because the Software Usage Report provides usage data for up to one year's data collected on all LPARs of a processor or parallel sysplex, all that SMF data must be processed via the SMFDATA file each time IFAURP is executed, together with the full set of control statements, that must be provided in the correct order as new products or processors are added over the year. Failure to provide a Software Usage Report that contains all the required data processed with the correct sequence of control statements will invalidate continued use of usage pricing for future billing periods.

Failure to use the IFAURP history files in the manner described places the burden of correctly managing all the SMF data and IFAURP control statements on the customer.