Workload requirements

Any CICS® system can act as a requesting region, a routing region, or a target region, under certain conditions.

  • All the CICS systems associated with a workload are either part of the same CICSplex, or, for BTS processes and activities, part of the same BTS-set. They do not have to reside in the same MVS™ image.
  • For dynamic routing of both terminal-related and non-terminal-related EXEC CICS START commands, requesting, routing, and target regions must be a supported release of CICS Transaction Server.
  • For dynamic routing of DPLs, routing regions must be a supported release of CICS Transaction Server; target regions can be any level of CICS.
  • For CICS BTS activities, the routing region (which is also the requesting region) and the target region must be a supported release of CICS Transaction Server. They must also be in the same sysplex.
  • For dynamic routing of transactions and static routing, the CICS system acting as the routing region must be running CICS Transaction Server. The CICS systems acting as target regions can be running any version of any CICS platform supported by CICSPlex® SM.
  • The routing region must be defined as local to a CMAS involved in managing the CICSplex. It must use CICSPlex SM facilities to communicate with that CMAS.
  • For Link3270 bridge requests the target regions must be a supported release of CICS Transaction Server.
  • The regions involved in workload management must have an in-service and ACQUIRED connection to each other.
A CICS system can act as a target region in one or more workloads; however, it can act as a routing region in only one workload.
Note: A CICS system can act as a routing region and a target region in the same workload.

When a CICS system acting as a target region is combined with other target regions to form a CICS system group, each of the target regions must have access to all the resources required by any transactions that might be routed to that CICS system group. In the case of a CICS BTS workload, they must all be in the same sysplex.