Possible to switch CICS region at run time.

[Neeraj N]

Hi,

We have a CICS region, CICSABCD. For some time there had been job abends as this region has got connectivity issues. Support team had been looking for to correct it. Though this problem makes me think that can we at run time see, if there is another CICS region available for connectivity and connect to that OR if this region is available or not and not let the jobs abend? There are EXEC DPL commands which try to connect to this region using program which causes the issues.

[Robert Sample]

Most of the time, a connection is made to a particular CICS region because it has the resources (programs, files, transactions) defined for the application. Connecting to a different CICS region would make absolutely no sense if these resources are not available to the different region. If the resources are available to the different region, then yes you could connect to the different region when you cannot connect to the original region -- if the API supports this. I haven't used EXEC DPL commands before, so I have no idea what the API supports.

[alpna]

Most of the time, a connection is made to a particular CICS region because it has the resources (programs, files, transactions) defined for the application. Connecting to a different CICS region would make absolutely no sense if these resources are not available to the different region. If the resources are available to the different region, then yes you could connect to the different region when you cannot connect to the original region -- if the API supports this. I haven't used EXEC DPL commands before, so I have no idea what the API supports.

Is there a command to switch the region in CICS?

[Robert Sample]

I reiterate:

I haven't used EXEC DPL commands before, so I have no idea what the API supports.

So I have no idea if EXEC DPL has a command to switch the region in CICS. Once you're connected to a particular CICS region, it is vanishingly rare to need to change the region -- my thought is that if the API supports this, there will be commands to do so. But more likely the program determines which region to connect to BEFORE making the connection, and without completely starting over it would not be possible to change the region -- but as I said, I have no idea what the API supports.

[Neeraj N]

Thanks.

Are you calling DPL as API? Is there a reason to call it like that?

[Robert Sample]

API is Application Programming Interface -- the term applies to a variety of command sets (EXEC CICS commands, for example, are an API).

[Neeraj N]

Thanks Robert.

[alpna]

Thanks Robert...