Architecture and processing

Advanced Allocation Management operates at the system level to intercept x37 type abends and other errors that are caused by insufficient disk space allocations, unavailable DASD extents, and out-of-space conditions.

After you install and configure Advanced Allocation Management, determine what you want to recover in the event of an x37 type abend or other similar error and what Advanced Allocation Management should do if it encounters a particular error condition that involves the selected items.

With the extensive and flexible rule definitions, you can specify combinations of selection criteria (the items you want Advanced Allocation Management to include or exclude from processing) and functions (the actions you want Advanced Allocation Management to perform when it detects an item that is specified by the selection criteria).

To help avoid out-of-space conditions that occur during end-of-volume processing, use the Advanced Allocation Management dynamic volume addition function and volume group support to define specific volume groups from which Advanced Allocation Management selects additional volumes, as needed.

After you initiate the Advanced Allocation Management started task, and customize and activate the appropriate definitions, no additional user intervention is required. When Advanced Allocation Management is running, it interacts with your operating system to determine when an x37 type abend or other similar error is about to occur, and manages the situation according to your specifications.

Note: Advanced Allocation Management does not attempt to prevent and recover from all situations; only the situations that you specify using Advanced Allocation Management definitions.

The following figure shows an example of a single instance of Advanced Allocation Management on a single image.

This diagram shows an example of a single instance of the product. — Figure 1. Advanced Allocation Management (single instance)

When the started task is initiated, it references the data in the subsystem options member to establish global settings, including the subsystem identifier for this specific instance of the product. The subsystem ID identifies this specific instance of Advanced Allocation Management within your environment. The started task then starts the Advanced Allocation Management subsystem and the product begins the initialization process. During the initialization process, the control blocks are built, the product modules are loaded, and other product files are read and processed.

After Advanced Allocation Management is running, its allocation and end-of-volume processing intercepts interact with your operating system to determine when an x37 type abend or other similar error is about to occur. When Advanced Allocation Management detects a potential error condition, it manages the situation according to the product definitions that you specified in the control data set.

Note: An Advanced Allocation Management subsystem can be active or inactive. An Advanced Allocation Management subsystem is considered to be active when the Advanced Allocation Management started task that is associated with that subsystem ID is running and the product-level intercepts are enabled.

Multiple instances of Advanced Allocation Management can run concurrently on a single MVS image. Each instance of the product is considered to be a separate Advanced Allocation Management subsystem and therefore, must have a unique subsystem ID and started task JCL to differentiate it from other Advanced Allocation Management subsystems that might be running on the same image. For more information, see Multiple instances of Advanced Allocation Management.