Defining a VTAM physical link

You can use either the CREATE MSPLINK type-2 command or the MSPLINK stage-1 system definition macro to define the physical link and its attributes.

To use the CREATE MSPLINK command, dynamic resource definition must be enabled in your IMS system. The CREATE MSPLINK command is logged.

If dynamic definition is not enabled in your IMS system, you must use the MSPLINK macro to define your physical links. During system definition, define all physical connections that might potentially be used, even if several might be for backup purposes or might not be intended for continual use.

For physical links that use VTAM, you must supply a NAME keyword that matches the label on the VTAM APPL statement for the remote system. The NAME keyword and the VTAM APPL statement both specify the VTAM node name.

The label on the VTAM APPL statement also serves as a default value for the ACBNAME parameter on the same statement. Regardless of whether you use the default value for the ACBNAME parameter, this value must match the APPLID parameter on the IMS COMM macro.

The SESSION parameter indicates the number of parallel sessions, or logical links, that can be active for TCP/IP and VTAM physical link types.