Link checks and information for distributed routing programs

When you write a distributed routing program, you can check that a link is available before routing your request. You can also keep information about how requests are routed.

• When writing your routing program, you can use the CICS Explorer® ISC/MRO Connections operations view or the EXEC CICS INQUIRE CONNECTION and INQUIRE IRC commands to confirm that a link is available before routing a request. The EXEC CICS INQUIRE and EXEC CICS SET commands are described in System commands.
• Because the distributed routing program runs outside a unit of work environment, your program must not alter any recoverable resources, or issue file control or temporary storage requests.
• If you want to keep information about how requests are routed, it must be done in the user routing program, perhaps by writing the information to a data set. Because the routing program is distributed, all the CICS® regions in the transaction routing set must have access to the data set.
• The distributed routing program can be RMODE ANY but must be AMODE 31.