An abend, or abnormal end, is the most obvious way for a software problem to be indicated. The z/OS processing for an abend normally creates a dump of the failing program's address space storage for use in problem determination. An abend can be initiated by Mainframe Access itself or by other software components of the z/OS system. Although a program abend is most often the result of a software error within the failing program, abend conditions can also be caused by other software and hardware components of the system.