CICS for z/OS Architecture Review

A review of what the definable Resources are and how they can influence the behaviour of application programs; Address Space layout; CICS TCB's are reviewed to provide an understanding of what part of the system is responsible for what function; Description of CICS Domains and Gates is done to provide an understanding of the information managed by the system; a review of the steps/functions performed by CICS to start/end Tasks and Transactions; Description of Kernel Storage and Kernel Linkage mechanism; KE Dump Representation; API Storage.

CICS for z/OS Externals

Good problem investigation starts here i.e. understanding what the system tells us when an error situation arises. CICS Message Formats, Destinations and Processing is covered; an overview of CICS and Non-CICS Transaction Abend Codes and system abend codes is done.

CICS for z/OS Internals

This is a review of CICS Internal architecture; Kernel, Storage Manager, Dispatcher, Loader, Program Manager and Application Domains are all looked at providing control block structure and information about what kind of data can be found in them.

CICS for z/OS Dumps and Traces

This chapter describes the format of transaction and system dumps; it also provides information about the environment that is required to produce these dumps. Transaction and system Dump are described and examples of each domains including new CICS for z/OS domains will be shown; CICS Trace and examples of the 3 trace formatting options.

Problem Investigation

Classifying the Problem; Transaction Abends such as ASRA, AEXX, ASRD, AEYD and AEZD are covered with practical exercises for each using CICS transaction dumps and Language Environment dumps; system type of outages such as Waits/stalls, short of storage, loops and storage violations are covered with practical exercises using system dumps.