Overview of DFHCSDUP audit collection

CICS® Configuration Manager collects historical data for changes made in CICS Configuration Manager, and stores those records in the journal. It is also possible to set up CICS Configuration Manager to collect audit records for changes made in DFHCSDUP so that you can view, compare, and recover or backout these changes in CICS Configuration Manager. See Optional: Collect and report DFHCSDUP changes for information about how to set up CICS Configuration Manager to collect DFHCSDUP audit records.

The following figures illustrate how CICS Configuration Manager performs DFHCSDUP audit collection. An important component is the CICS Configuration Manager program CCVCSDUP, which wraps around DFHCSDUP so that the existing DFHCSDUP batch jobs can continue to run without modification.

DFHCSDUP with or without CICS Configuration Manager

The following figure contrasts standalone DFHCSDUP with DFHCSDUP when it is integrated with CICS Configuration Manager.

Figure 1. A comparison of DFHCSDUP versus DFHCSDUP with CICS Configuration Manager integration

DFHCSDUP is shown surrounded by the CCVCSDUP wrapper program which outputs to the CICS CM server or to the audit file

CCVCSDUP works as follows:

The CICS Configuration Manager wrapper program CCVCSDUP performs the audit collection.
Note: Because this solution uses the CCVCSDUP wrapper program, you do not need to change any existing JCL jobs which run DFHCSDUP.
The control table, CCVCSDUT, identifies the repository that contains the audit collection settings.
Note: If the repository is not accessible from the system running the DFHCSDUP job, you can define a repository and load it with the required system options using member CCVXDUP4 in the sample library SCCVSAMP.
The repository contains system options and CICS configurations.
The system options determine whether CCVCSDUP sends audit records immediately to the CICS Configuration Manager server via EXCI, or to an audit collection file. The CICS configurations identify the CSD files for audit collection.
CCVCSDUP has a termination exit point, which you can use to make the CICS Configuration Manager server read and process the audit collection file.

Collection methods

There are three methods of processing the collected audit records:

EXCI: Audit records are passed to the CICS Configuration Manager server via EXCI communication.
FILE: Audit records are written to a collection file for subsequent processing.
DYNAMIC: Method EXCI is used for processing. If EXCI is unavailable, for example because the server is not running or EXCI communication is not active, the FILE method is used.

The FILE method writes collected audit records to a file for later processing. The system options for the server repository specify the name of the audit collection file. Server programs will read this file, and save the audit records into the journal. File processing occurs automatically when the server starts, or you can trigger it by running the CCVJ transaction.

When the FILE collection method is used, the following steps might also be required:

Copy the collected audit records from the file used by DFHCSDUP into the server's audit file, if these files are not the same.
Trigger the CCVJ transaction on the server to process the collected audit records.

Collection via EXCI

When the collection method option is set to EXCI or DYNAMIC, and CCVCSDUP is able to communicate successfully with the CICS Configuration Manager server, audit collection via EXCI can occur.

Figure 2. Audit collection via EXCI

Diagram showing EXCI communication from CCVCSDUP to the server and the journal

Collection via FILE (shared DASD)

When the collection method option is set to FILE, or it is set to DYNAMIC and EXCI is not available, and both DFHCSDUP and the CICS Configuration Manager server can access the same file storage system, audit records are collected as shown in the following diagram.

Figure 3. Audit collection via FILE with shared DASD

Diagram showing audit collection using the FILE option when shared DASD is available

In this scenario, the exit works as follows:

CCVCSDUP submits a job through the termination exit to trigger the CCVJ transaction on the CICS Configuration Manager server.
The server then reads, processes, and deletes records in the audit collection file.
The CCVJNL journal, containing the audit history, is then updated.

Collection via FILE (no shared DASD)

When the collection method option is set to FILE, or it is set to DYNAMIC and EXCI is not available, and DFHCSDUP and the CICS Configuration Manager server cannot access the same file storage system, audit records are collected as shown in the following diagram.

Figure 4. Audit collection via FILE with no shared DASD

Diagram showing audit collection using the FILE option when shared DASD is not available

In this scenario, the exit works as follows:

CCVCSDUP submits a job through the termination exit which performs the following tasks:
1. It transfers the collection file to the same LPAR as the CICS Configuration Manager server, and merges the collected audit records into the server's audit file for processing.
2. It transfers a batch job to that LPAR to run the CCVJ transaction.
CCVJ causes the CICS Configuration Manager server to read, process, and delete records in the server's audit collection file.
The CCVJNL journal, containing the audit history, is then updated.