Executing TWS Requests with TWS Automation

Generally, you must use the TWS-specific OPCA, OPCACMD, and (optionally) OPCAPARM keywords to put an application defined to SA z/OS under the control of TWS Automation.

You must define these entries under the MESSAGES/USER DATA policy item of the respective application in the SA z/OS policy database. See IBM Z® System Automation Defining Automation Policy for more information on the MESSAGES/USER DATA Policy Item, and MESSAGES/USER DATA Entries and USER E-T Pairs for TWS Automation for the TWS-specific keywords.

You can vary the amount of fine-tuning considerably. If you only want to start and stop subsystems known to SA z/OS through TWS in a standard way, you need not even code any of these keywords. On the other hand, you can call user-written modules with OPCACMD that perform tasks not related to any SA z/OS subsystem and that must inform TWS about the success of their execution independently of TWS Automation.

The following sections explain the connection between the TWS request and the TWS-specific MESSAGES/USER DATA keywords by a fairly typical example, describe the use of request parameters, and give an overview of the different request types.