Sharing the CSD between different releases of CICS

You can share the CICS® system definition file (CSD) between different CICS releases to enable you to share common resource definitions by using the appropriate compatibility groups. See CSD compatibility between different CICS releases. There are changes to resource definition attributes between releases of CICS (see Changes to resource definitions) so, when you upgrade CICS TS, you must upgrade the CSD. If the CSD is shared, you must update it from the higher level CICS region.

• Use the ALTER command on definitions that specify obsolete attributes.
  This does not cause the loss of these attributes in releases of CICS TS for z/OS®, Version 6, so you can safely update resource definitions from a CICS region that is at a release of CICS TS for z/OS, Version 6.
• If you are sharing the CSD between a higher-level region and a region at an earlier release of CICS, use the CSD update batch utility program DFHCSDUP of the higher level release to update resources that specify obsolete attributes.
  1. Specify if you want to use the compatibility option. Use the PARM parameter on the EXEC PGM=DFHCSDUP statement, using the option COMPAT.
     The default is NOCOMPAT, which means that you cannot update obsolete attributes. (See Sample job for invoking DFHCSDUP as a batch program.)
  2. You cannot use the DFHCSDUP EXTRACT command in this release when the COMPAT option is specified.