To a programmer, a coupling facility can
be viewed as shared storage that is directly accessible to connections
distributed throughout the sysplex. Connections using a coupling facility
must reside on systems with a direct attachment to the coupling facility.
Sysplex services for data sharing allow you to:
- Store and access data in the coupling facility.
- Choose synchronous or asynchronous structure operations, with
a variety of options for handling operation completion.
- Tailor structures and services for your specific needs by customizing
your structure and by coding exits to respond to events and make decisions.
- Use multiple structures, either for different purposes within
the application or to implement a complex function. For instance,
an application could use a lock structure to implement a serialization
mechanism for use with a cache structure
- Specify whether a structure is to be deallocated if there are
no active users connected to it or whether the structure is to remain
allocated until it is explicitly deallocated.
- Relocate a structure elsewhere in the same coupling facility or
in a different one.
- Change the size of a structure and/or reapportion the use of structure
storage based on application growth or workload variations.
- Obtain diagnostic information about a coupling facility and its
structures.