Remote files

When multiple CICS® systems are connected, they can share each other's files; all such files must be defined to CICS, including those belonging to another system. Files on other systems are defined as remote. Remote files are accessed through CICS function shipping of file control requests to the remote region that owns the file.

However, this does not apply to files accessed in RLS mode, or coupling facility data tables, which are always defined as local files.

The resource attributes needed by CICS for remote files are not specific to the access method used. You can therefore define both remote BDAM files and remote VSAM files using RDO.

If you name a REMOTESYSTEM, you may also supply a REMOTENAME, which is the name of the file used in the remote system.

If you specify a REMOTESYSTEM name that corresponds to the SYSIDNT of the CICS region in which the file definition is installed, CICS installs the definition as a local file. Otherwise, CICS installs the definition as a remote file.