About this Course

The “CICS for System Programmers” is geared towards technical staff new to the CICS environment. In this course, the participant will learn how a CICS system is put together: resource definitions, system utilities both online and offline, System Initialization tables, CICS JCL, system datasets are subjects covered in depth in this course. We also discuss CICS storage management, CICS communications and CICS customization. At the end of this class, the attendee will have been exposed to almost everything that goes on in a CICS address space. level: CICS/TS 3.1.

Audience Profile

This course was designed for people who will be new to CICS system administration. It will also be profitable for anyone who will have to define and/or support CICS systems.

At Course Completion

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Define CICS resources with the proper attributes
• Code MVS/JCL required to guaranty proper CICS initialization
• Properly use the necessary CICS utilities to perform their duties
• Properly make use of CICS online function to monitor and manage CICS systems
• The course will also allow the participant to build a CICS address space from scratch
• Understand System Initialization Table
• Provide an overview of the major facilities available in CICS
• Describe the various ways one can customize a CICS system

Prerequisites

Some knowledge of TSO/ISPF will help during some exercises; the student will be preparing and submitting a CICS address space from scratch so some JCL expertise will most definitely be an asset. Although not essential, some programming experience will be helpful to successfully complete the debugging exercises.

Course Outline

1. CICS Overview

This module describe transaction processing within CICS; how is a transaction triggered, the various CICS components involved, the main CICS resources that are needed in order to make this process happen are all subjects covered by this module.  It also discusses some of the software processing involved in making transactions working CICS; CICS domains and TCB’s are introduced in this chapter.

2. Resource Definition

This chapter discusses the entire process of defining resources in CICS using both the online and offline utilities.  Performance issues are discussed when we cover the SIT table.

• Transaction, program, transaction class
• File Control Table
• DB2 connections
• Temporary Storage and Transient Data
• Document template
• Pipelines
• URIMAPS
• WEBSERVICE
• TCPIPSERVICE
• EJB resources – CORBASERVER, REQUEST
• MODELS, DJAR
• SIT table

3. CICS System Preparation

This chapter is about CICS system data sets and their use.  This is also the place where the participant will learn how to define CICS system logs and MVS logstreams.

• CICS Catalogs DFHGCD & DFHLCD
• CICS System Definition File – DFHCSD
• DFHRPL
• Auxtrace and dump data sets
• TS and TD queues
• Local Request Queue – DFHLRQ
• Unix System Services setup of CICS
• Installation tips
• The CICS JCL

4. Externals

• CICS-supplied transactions
  • CEMT, CMAC, CECI, CEDF, CEBR
• Utilities such as:
  • The Load Module scanner utility DFHEISUP
  • Auxiliary Trace price utility DFHTU640
  • CICS System Definition Utility DFHCSDUP
  • Monitoring
  • Statistics
  • Initialization and shutdown procedures will be reviewed
  • External CICS Interface

5. Initialization & Shutdown

In this module, we discuss initialization and shutdown processes, the various types of START parameters

• DFHRMUTL
• CICS Initialization messages for AUTO start with and without recovery
• Determining the statues of CICS termination

6. CICS Storage

This module discusses storage management in CICS.

• The various page tools (DSA’s)
• The storage protection facility
• Transaction isolation
• Command Protection
• Storage keys

7. CICS Communication

This module discusses the various communications facilities available in CICS

• MRO/ISC
• DCE support
• WEB interface
• 320 bridge
• Webservice
• Pipelines

8. Online Tools

This chapter introduces the system programmer to the various online tools available in CICS

• CEMT, CECI, CMAC, CEDF, CEDX
• CETR

9. CICS Offline Utilities

All CICS utilities will be present here with an opportunity to try most of them.  Focus will be on the following utilities:

• DFHSTUP
• DFHJUP
• DFHLGCNV
• DFHMNDUP
• DFHCSDUP
• DFHTU640
• DFHDU640
• DFHEISUP
• DFHBMSUP

10. CICS Customization

An introduction to the various ways to customize CICS;

• User-Replaceable Modules mainly program and terminal auto-install
• Global User Exits and Task-related user exits