Application audit trails need to ontain comprehensive information about your data
layouts and job runs. These details must be readily-available, secure, and
enable:
• forensic data and issue analyses
• job replication
• parameter modification
• sensitive data protection
• user accountability
For example, in forensic data analysis, if a record count or value range changes
beyond an established threshold, it could indicate a problem of data loss
or fraud. Not all software packages, much less bespoke application programs,
allow such tracing.
Solutions:
The job scripts, statistical reports, and audit logs from all CoSort
(SortCL) programs provide the layout
specifications and manipulation details for each input, inrec (virtual),
and output file -- including which field attributes and protection techniques,
were specified.
Phase-specific record counts -- including the number of records accepted, rejected, and processed -- plus job tuning details, are available in the statistical logs. The entire job script, along with user, runtime, and environment variable information, are also recorded in the audit trail.
It is easy to query and report on the logs using your preferred XML parsing tool or SortCL (through supplied data definition files for the logs). For example, you can query on file and field names, run dates, and job duration. You can quickly examine specific jobs without having to manually review a giant audit trail.