Using MVS system symbols in VTAM definition statements and macroinstructions

You can use MVS™ system symbols in the names you specify for VTAM® definition statements and in the values you specify on the operands on those definition statements in all major nodes and in all definitions for routing and dynamic reconfiguration.

You can also use MVS system symbols in the names you specify for VTAM macroinstructions and in the values you specify on the operands on those macroinstructions for the following user-definable tables:

Associated LU table
APPN Class of Service (CoS) definitions
APPN-to-subarea Class of Service mapping table
Message-flooding prevention table
Model name table

You can use the following symbols:

&SYSCLONE: Represents a 1–2-character shorthand notation for the name of the system
&SYSNAME: Represents a 1–8-character system name
&SYSPLEX: Represents a 1–8-character sysplex name
&installation-defined system symbol: Represents a 1–16-character identifier. You can define this symbol to be any identifier you want.
Restriction: Symbol names with length up to 16 with substitution text length limited to NameLength+1. Symbol names with length up to 16 with a last character of an underscore (_) with substitution text length limited to NameLength+1.

The substitution text for these system symbols is defined in MVS and is substituted by MVS in place of the symbols during VTAM startup, major node activation, resource activation, and table activation. See z/OS MVS Initialization and Tuning Guide and z/OS MVS Initialization and Tuning Reference for information about how to define the symbols in MVS.

MVS system symbols can be used to allow a single major node, routing or dynamic reconfiguration definition, or user-definable table to be used by multiple VTAMs in a multisystem environment. For information about how to use MVS system symbols in VTAMLST, see z/OS Communications Server: SNA Network Implementation Guide.