Determine where to use system symbols

System symbols offer the greatest advantage when two or more systems require different resources. This topic provides examples of how to specify system symbols when naming resources in system commands.

Data sets:

Assume that you want to display, on all systems in a sysplex, the local page data sets that fit the following naming convention:

SY&SYSCLONE..PAGE.LOCAL

Instead of entering a different command to display the unique page data sets on each system, you could enter the following command to display all the data sets that fit the naming convention:

ROUTE *ALL,D ASM,PAGE=SY&SYSCLONE..PAGE.LOCAL

When each system processes the command, it substitutes the text that it has defined for the &SYSCLONE system symbol. For example, if a sysplex consists of two systems named SYS1 and SYS2, accepting the default value for &SYSCLONE produces the following data sets:

D ASM,PAGE=SYS1.PAGE.LOCAL on system SYS1
D ASM,PAGE=SYS2.PAGE.LOCAL on system SYS2

Jobs:

When specifying system symbols in the source JCL for job names, first determine if the jobs run as batch jobs or started tasks. If a job is a started task, you can specify system symbols in the source JCL. If a job runs in batch, you cannot specify system symbols in the source JCL; consider changing the job to run as a started task.

Then, if a started task is to have multiple instances, determine if you want the started task to have a different name for each instance. If each instance of a task has a different name, your installation can easily identify the system on which each instance runs.

For started tasks, you can also specify system symbols on the JOBNAME parameter on the START command that starts the task. For more information about using system symbols in START commands, see START command.