XCF notepad

What is the XCF Notepad?

The XCF Notepad is a copy of the BMC ThruPut Manager Control File maintained in an IBM coupling facility.

The scope of the XCF Notepad is the JESplex. When XCF Notepad is activated, there is a unique XCF Notepad created for each JESplex.

Prerequisites

Before activating XCF Notepad, you must ensure that all systems in the JESplex are running the same levels of software;

ThruPut Manager 22.4 or higher
BMC AMI Ops Automation for Batch ThruPut or ThruPut Manager Automated Edition Plus (AE+)
z/OSV2R3 or higher

Important

If your installation shares the Control File across multiple JESplexes or multiple SYSPlexes, XCF Notepad cannot be activated.

Planning Considerations

Each XCF Notepad is hosted in a list structure in an IBM coupling facility, and an additional structure is used to host the note pad catalog. To use XCF Notepad services, the installation needs to define these structures in the Coupling Facility Resource Management (CFRM) policy.

BMC ThruPut Manager creates its Note Pad with an owner name of $$TM and an application name of JES2. The maximum number of notes specified when the Note Pad is created is 53248.

See IBM manual “Setting up a SYSPLEX”, section “Planning XCF Note Pad Services in a SYSPLEX” for a detailed description on creating the necessary coupling facility definitions.

Security Considerations

Your installation’s security administrator may wish to define System Authorization Facility (SAF) profiles restricting access to the BMC ThruPut Manager XCF Notepad.

See IBM manual “Setting up a SYSPLEX”, section “Planning XCF Note Pad Services in a SYSPLEX”, section “Authorizing XCF note pad requests” on how the SAF profiles can be created and modified.

Initialization Statements

Initialization statement CFM SET XCF_NOTEPAD(ON|OFF) has been added to the BMC ThruPut Manager started task (TMSS). The default state is OFF.

Activating XCF Notepad

XCF Notepad is activated by including a CFM SET XCF_NOTEPAD(ON) initialization statement. XCF Notepad must be activated on all systems in the JESPlex simultaneously. Each participating TMSS must be brought down. The first TMSS started will create the XCF Notepad.

Commands

The CFM DISPLAY command has been updated. When XCF Notepad is active, the CFM DISPLAY command shows XCF_NOTEPAD(ON) and includes the Notepad name and description.

Recovery from a Notepad failure

If there is an issue with the Notepad, then the installation should return to use of the DASD Control File. This is readily performed by simply replacing the CFM SET XCF_NOTEPAD(ON) initialization statement with CFM SET XCF_NOTEPAD(OFF) and then restarting the TM STC on all members of the JESPlex. The failed Notepad will be deleted automatically during initialization of the first TM STC where the XCF NOTEPAD is off.

Failure of the XCF Notepad

In rare circumstances, it might be necessary to delete the XCF Notepad so it can be re-created from the data in the BMC ThruPut Manager Control File. This can be done by using IBM utility program IXCMINPD.

The following statement is an example of how to invoke the utility:

//DELETE EXEC PGM=IXCMINPD,PARM=’notepadname’
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=A

BMC ThruPut Manager’s XCF Notepads has a name which includes the JES2 cold-start date and time so that it is unique within the IBM SYSPlex.

Each XCF Notepad name is constructed as follows:

$$TM.JES2.coldstartdate.coldstarttime”

where

$$TM.JES2 - is constant

coldstartdate.coldstarttime - is the cold start date and time of the JESPlex

XCF command D XCF,NP,SCOPE=DET lists all notepads defined to the SYSPlex. The description associated with BMC ThruPut Manager’s XCF Notepad(s) includes the node name of the corresponding JESPlex.

When the XCF Notepad has been deleted, the next BMC ThruPut Manager started with CFM SET XCF_NOTEPAD(ON) will re-create the XCF Notepad from the Control File data.

A scenario where deletion of the Notepad might be necessary is in a Disaster Recovery environment where cold starts are performed. As the notepad name is constructed from the cold start data and time, a new Notepad will be created when BMC ThruPut Manager initializes. The installation may wish to clean up lingering Notepads from previous starts.