CICS System Administration

This course is designed to help CICS system administration personnel understand CICS from initialisation through to shutdown, including maintenance, performance and availability.

A CICS 6.1 system is used for online access and workshops. This course is also available at previous releases, please ask for details.

This course is intended for personnel responsible for CICS administration, experienced application programmers, system programmers and managers.

Delegates are expected to have prior CICS experience.

Upon completion of this course, attendees will appreciate how CICS works and be able to:

• Start, run and shut down a CICS system.
• Perform CICS administration duties.
• Understand and work with resource naming conventions
• Use CEDA, CEDB, and CEDC to manage CICS resources on-line.
• Understand and maintain the System Initialisation Table parameters including those relating to performance.

A CICS 6.1 system will be available for online access and workshops. This course is also available at previous releases, please ask for details.

CICS/TS Overview
Who might be involved.
What is CICS?
Programming Interfaces (API, SPI and XPI).
Transaction flow.
Terminal versus non-terminal.

Data Types
Local Shared Resources (LSR).
Temporary storage (TS).
Transient Data (TD).
CICS Log Manager.
Local and Global catalogues.
DB2.
User Application Files.

CICS/TS Data Sets
SYSIN.
STEPLIB.
DFHRPL.
DFHTEMP.
DFHINTRA.
DFHAUXTA and DFHAUXTB.
Extra-partition data sets.
Local and Global catalogue data sets.
CAVM.
DFHCXRF.
CICS Dump data sets.
System dump data sets.
C Language data sets.
DFHCSD.
CICS BTS data set.
DFHEJOS.
DFHCMACD.
Sample FILEA data set.

System Initialization Parameters
A look at the many SIT parameters and where they can be used (i.e., Macro, SYSIN or CONSOLE).

CICS/TS Start and Stop
INITIAL.
COLD.
WARM.
STANDBY.
Effects of the Local and Global catalogues.
Started Task invocation.
Batch job submission.
CICS Shut down.

Supplied Transactions
CEMN.
CEMT.
CEBR.
CECI.
CEDA.
CEDF and CEDX.
CETR.
CMAC.

Transaction Management
Relevant SIT parameters.
Resource Definition controls.

Resource Overview
Resource packaging (GROUPS and LISTS).
Resource definition methods.
Auto-install and security implications.
CSD SIT parameters.
General list of resource types.

DFHCSDUP
A description of the various commands, with exercises.

File Related Definitions
Using FILE definition.
Using LSRPOOL definition.
Using LIBRARY definition.

Transaction Related Definitions
Using MAPSET definition.
Using PROGRAM definition.
Using TRANSACTION definition.
Using TRANCLASS definition.

Defining Peripheral Services
Using TD Queue definition.
Using CONSOLE definition.
Using Terminal Model definitions.

CICS to CICS Connectivity
MRO vs. ISC vs. IPIC.
z/OS IEFSSN implications.
SIT implications.
Using the CONNECTION resource.
Using the SESSION resource.

CICS to DB2 Connectivity
How a connection is made.
Thread types.
How threads work.
SIT implications.
Using DB2CONN definitions.
Using DB2ENTRY definitions.
Attachment commands – DSNC.

CICS to MQ Connectivity
CICS / MQ Relationship.
SIT Implications.
CSD implications.
Using the CKQC transaction.

CICS / Batch Interface
LINK Interface.
CALL Interface.
Security implications.
SIT Implications.
JES2 Interface.

CICS / WEB Interface
WEB support overview.
SIT implications.
Using TCPIPSERVICE definition.
Using DOCTEMPLATE definition.
Using URIMAP definition.
PIPELINE definition described.

Security
Ensuring CICS has the authority to access non-CICS resources.
ICHRIN03 vs. STARTED.
Protecting the APPLID.
Impact of SEC=NO in the SIT.
Defining a default user.
Transaction security.
The granular security controls within RACF.

Storage
General z/OS Address Space structure.
Exploiting the Page-able Link Pack Area (PLPA).
Impact of LSQA requirements.
Impact of z/OS GETMAIN requests.
SIT parameters.
DSA vs. EDSA.
Sizing EDSA.

Problem Determination
Transaction dumps.
Transaction DUMP SIT parameters.
DFHDU670 and transaction dumps.
System Dumps.
SIT Parameters.
z/OS influencing parameters.
IPCS overview.
CICS Trace facility.
SIT Parameters.
DFHTU670 and trace information.

Tuning and Statistics
A general review of statistics collection including SMF.
Practical use of the statistics reporting program.
A review of some common performance themes.
A brief review of GTF.

Appendices
Sample Program and Map.