JCL stands for Job Control language. As name suggests, it is a language used to control execution of Jobs in MVS z/OS Operating System. In mainframe, collection of statements makes JOB and these statements are part of JCL.

Job can be considered as unit of execution in mainframe and its role is to take care of communication between a program that can be written in COBOL, Assembler or PL/I, and the MVS operating system.

There are major three statements in JCL, it is JOB, EXEC and DD statements. JOB statement is used to specify information related to Job i.e. job name, programmer name, accounting information etc. EXEC statement is used to specify the program and procedure to be executed and DD statement is used to specify information about files, printers or resources used.

This tutorial can be helpful for any software programmer who wants to learn and understand basics of Job Control Language. Also, it will useful for mainframe professionals who wants to revise mainframe JCL concepts

It can be helpful for any readers who has basic knowledge of software programming concepts and very basic knowledge of computer related terms. Understanding of job management concepts will be plus point.