SA z/OS Automation Operators AUTCONxx

Answer

AUTCON and AUTCON01-14 are provided by SA z/OS, but they are not mandatory.

Customers can elect to use them to relate/associate them with external MVS consoles (a console not owned by the NetView® address space region), to receive command input for the NetView® region from those external consoles.

One would do this so as not to tie up other tasks (ie AUTO1,AUTO2,etc) with the job of processing input commands from external consoles, especially if they might be invoking long running commands or those with some form of WAIT.

An example setup and usage of these autotasks is to process external command input from MVS master consoles, or HMC o/s console, or with the special console name *ANY*. Implementation can be done via AUXINITCMD in cnmstyle (using AUTOTASK command to log the tasks on to NetView®) or by definition of the tasks in SA z/OS auto-operator policy "AOP". The usage is easily understood by looking at DISCONID command:
AOP definition example for AUTCON01:                                          
AUTOMATION CONFIGURATION DISPLAY - ENTRY= AUTOOPS                  
 TYPE IS AUTCON01                                                  
 CONSOLE         = &SYSNAME.HMC                                    
 ID              = AUTCON01                                        
                                                                   
DISCONID:                                                        
CNM492I  OPERATOR ID   CONSOLE ID    CONSOLE NAME                  
CNM492I  AUTCON                 0 *  *ANY*                        
CNM492I  AUTCON01        EXTENDED *  MVS1HMC                      
CNM492I  AUTCON02        EXTENDED *  MVS1MSTR  

This simple setup results in the following:

AUTCON01 - process NetView® commands input from hmc os console
AUTCON02 - process NetView® commands input from mvs master console
AUTCON - assign console 'ANY' to process command inputs from other MCS console on the lpar

How many AUTCONxx auto-operator tasks one uses (if at all), or for what purposes, or relating to what real console names, is totally up to the user requirements and preferences.