Support for CICS applications

You need the assistance of a CICS® administrator to complete this customization task, which requires specific resources or special customization tasks.
  • Update CICS system initialization parameters (SIP)
  • Update CICS region JCL
  • Define resources to CICS

This customization task extends CICS to support testing CICS applications through recording of the parameters used in EXEC CICS calls.

To record a CICS application, z/OS® Dynamic Test Runner requires the following CICS updates:
  • CICS system initialization parameter (SIP) updates
    • Specify RENTPGM=NOPROTECT, as documented in the BZU.SBZUSAMP(BZUSIP) sample SIP update member.
      Note: This definition is not required if you only want to collect events that can be captured using the standard CICS interfaces.
  • CICS JCL updates:
    • Specify REGION=0M on the EXEC statement to provide sufficient room to buffer the recording.
    • Define the BZU.SBZULOAD load library in the region’s DFHRPL DD statement, where BZU is the high-level qualifier used during the SMP/E install of z/OS Dynamic Test Runner.
      • Alternatively, you can define a LIBRARY resource definition in the CSD for this load library. A sample definition can be found in the FEL.SFELSAMP(AZUCSD) sample CSD update job.
  • CICS CSD updates:

    Define z/OS Dynamic Test Runner to your CICS region, as documented in the BZUCSD sample CSD update job. BZUCSD is located in BZU.#CUST.JCL, unless you specified a different location when you customized and submitted job BZU.SBZUSAMP(BZUSETUP). For more information. see Customization setup.

  • Allocate work data sets:
    • Define a temporary holding area for recorded data, as documented in the BZUVSAM sample allocation job. BZUVSAM is located in BZU.#CUST.JCL, unless you specified a different location when you customized and submitted job BZU.SBZUSAMP(BZUSETUP). For more information. see Customization setup. The allocated data set is referenced in the CICS CSD updates.
    • When users extract their data from the temporary holding area it is placed in a playback data set. While it is likely that your users will allocate this data set themselves, it can also be allocated for them using the BZUALLOC sample allocation job. BZUALLOC is located in BZU.#CUST.JCL, unless you specified a different location when you customized and submitted job BZU.SBZUSAMP(BZUSETUP). For more information. see Customization setup. The allocated data set is referenced in the CICS CSD updates.
Note: Dynamic Test Runner uses transient data queues (TD queues). You can read an item from a TD queue only once, because whenever you read from a transient data queue, CICS deletes the entry (by performing a “destructive read”). Therefore, if you specify security with SEC=YES as a system initialization parameter, CICS requires a minimum authorization level of UPDATE for all TD commands (DELETEQ, WRITEQ, and READQ). See Security for transient data in the CICS Transaction Server for z/OS CICS security guide for more details.