Identifying system groups

You can identify one or more subsets of the CICS systems within a CICSplex as a CICS system group, which can be manipulated as a single entity and independently of the rest of CICSplex.

For example, if you define a CICSplex made up of TOR, AOR, and FOR CICS® systems, you might want to define the AORs as a CICS system group, so that you can use a single CICSPlex® SM command to make changes to, or request data from, all CICS systems in that category.

Alternatively, you could define a single group for any of the following:
  • Particularly heavily loaded CICS systems
  • CICS systems that have different security requirements from the other CICS systems in the CICSplex
  • CICS systems in which particular applications run

CICS system groups, unlike CICSplexes, do not have to be mutually exclusive: a CICS system can belong to any number of groups in a CICSplex. However, because the CICS system group is a subset of the CICSplex, a system group cannot cross CICSplex boundaries.

In the example configuration in Figure 1, some suggested CICS system groups are as follows:
  • CICSplex 1
    • Group 1: TOR 1 and TOR 2
    • Group 2: AOR 1 through AOR 5
    • Group 3: FOR 1
    • Group 4: All CICS systems on System A
    • Group 5: All CICS systems on System B
    • Group 6: All CICS systems on System C
    • Group 7: Group 4 and Group 5
    • Group 8: All CICS systems in CICSplex 1
  • CICSplex 2
    • Group 1: TOR 3
    • Group 2: AOR 6 through AOR 9
    • Group 4: All CICS systems on System E
    • Group 5: All CICS systems on System F
    • Group 6: Group 4 and Group 5
    • Group 7: All CICS systems in CICSplex 2

Notice that Group 7 in CICSplex 1 and Group 6 in CICSplex 2 comprise of other groups. Defining groups within groups is very efficient, both for you (because it means less effort) and for CICSPlex SM.

Group 8 in CICSplex 1 and Group 7 in CICSplex 2 include the same set of CICS systems as the CICSplex to which it belongs. These are often useful groups to define because the scope value (as specified for a monitor specification, for example) can be a CICS system or a CICS system group name only: it cannot be the name of a CICSplex.

This is merely an initial list of system groups. It is likely to be added to (or altered) when BAS, WLM, RTA, and monitoring requirements are identified.

Figure 1. Identifying the CICSplexes in the example enterprise map
System A, B and C are z/OS 2.3 systems. System A has a TOR and two AORs. System B has a TOR, an AOR and a FOR. System C has two AORs. System E and F are z/OS 2.2 systems. System E has two CICS AORs and a TOR. System F has two AORs. The CICS regions from System A, System B, and System C belong to CICSplex 1. The CICS regions from System E and System F belong to CICSplex 2.

Groups within groups

You can create CICS system groups from other groups. For example, if you want a single group to contain all AORs and all TORs in CICSplex, you can define its members as:
  • The CICS system group comprising all AORs
  • The CICS system group comprising all TORs

Any duplication of CICS system names that occurs in this way (for example, if a particular CICS system belongs to more than one constituent group) is accommodated by CICSPlex SM. When a CICS system group is the target of a CICSPlex SM command, CICS systems appearing in the group more than once are acted on once only.