Resource groups

A resource group can be any set of resource definitions that you want to manage as a unit. The resources in a group usually have something in common. They might be logically related by their use in a given application or communications network, or geographically related by their use at a given site.

A resource group can contain resource definitions of all types (such as connections, files, and journals). There is no real limit to the number or combination of resource definitions that can make up a group. However, only one version of a given resource can be included in a resource group at one time. You can maintain multiple versions of a resource definition in different resource groups, but not in the same group.

When you use the GET API command to create a result set of CICS® definition records, you can limit your request to definitions in a given resource group. The GET command for each CICS definition object (such as CONNDEF) supports the following parameter:

RESGROUP(resgroup): (Optional) Specify the name of an existing resource group from which CICS definition records should be selected.

You create resource groups by clicking the Create button in the Resource groups definition view. This action adds the resource group to the CICSPlex SM data repository.

You can also create a resource group using the CREATE command in the batched repository-update facility or the API. In that case, you can identify an existing resource group to be used as a model. The CREATE command for the RESGROUP object accepts the following parameters:

MODEL(resgroup)

(Optional) Specify the name of an existing resource group whose resource definitions are to be used by the new group.

MODE(option)

(Required, if you specified a MODEL value) Indicate which definitions are to be copied from the model resource group to the new group:

NO: Do not copy any definitions from the model group.
ASSOCIATIONS: Copy the associations between resource definitions and the model group (RESINGRP objects) and create a new set of associations from the existing resources to the new group.
MEMBERS: Copy all the resource definitions in the model group and create a new set (different version number) for use by the new group.

You can manage resource groups independently, but the real advantage comes in associating them with one or more resource descriptions or resource assignments.