Problem determination

Application programs that use CICS® intercommunication facilities are liable to be subject to error conditions not experienced in single-CICS systems.

Where the resource is remote, the function manager is also remote, so the transaction abend is suffered by the remote transaction. This in turn causes the local transaction to be abended with a transaction abend code of AIPM (for communication through IPIC), ATNI (for communication through z/OS® Communications Server), or AZI6 (for communication through MRO) rather than the particular code used in abending the remote transaction. However, the remote system sends the local CICS system an error message identifying the reason for the remote failure. This message is sent to the local CSMT destination. Therefore, if an application program uses HANDLE ABEND to continue processing when abends occur while accessing resources, it is unable to do so in the same way when those resources are remote.

Trace and memory dump facilities are defined in both local and remote CICS systems. When the remote transaction is abended, its CICS transaction dump is available at the remote site to assist in locating the reason for an abend condition.

Applications to be used with remote systems should be well tested to minimize the possibility of failing when accessing remote resources. A “remote test system” can reside in the same processor as the local system and so be tested in a single location where the transaction dumps from both systems, and the corresponding trace data, are readily available. The two transactions can be connected through MRO or through the z/OS Communications Server application-to-application facility.