AutoConnect BBI-SS PAS definitions

When a static or dynamic JNT is used, a CICS region must be started with the managing BBI-SS PAS defined before it can initiate communications. This is accomplished either through an INITPARM parameter in the CICS SIT or a BBIJNT00/BMCICS00 parameter member in a BBIPARM DD statement in the CICS startup JCL (see Step-1-Modify-CICS-startup-JCL).

• With the static JNT, the BBI-SS PAS must have a target entry for the CICS region in its BBIJNT00 parameter member and the in-core block generated by this entry is unchanged during the life of the BBI-SS PAS.

• With the dynamic JNT, the BBI-SS PAS must have a TGTDEF for the CICS region.

  For more information, see Implementing-dynamic-target-definitions. 

In either case, you must indicate the BBI-SS PAS name to its target CICS regions in order to establish the communications path between the BMC AMI Ops Monitor for CICS  agent running on the CICS region and the managing BBI-SS PAS.

AutoConnect provides compatibility with older versions of BMC AMI Ops Monitor for CICS as well as providing simple implementation rules for new users. To provide backward compatibility, AutoConnect operates under two sets of conditions from within a CICS region:

• The name of the managing BBI-SS PAS is manually defined. This implementation is standard under previous releases. Information on providing the name of the BBI-SS PAS to the CICS region can be found in Step-1-Modify-CICS-startup-JCL.
  
  
• No information on the name of the BBI-SS PAS is available to the CICS region.

When the BMC AMI Ops Monitor for CICS agent is started on the CICS region (through PLTPI, or the FST2 INIT or the FST2 QON transaction), it identifies the BBI-SS PAS by searching for an INITPARM value or a target entry in either the BMCICS00 or BBIJNT00 parameter member in an allocated BBIPARM library. The presence or absence of the BBI-SS PAS name drives agent processing down one of two paths. These two paths can be simplified as follows:

• If a directive to use a specific BBI-SS PAS is found
  • The agent code searches for the subsystem entry for the target BBI-SS PAS. If those blocks are unavailable, the agent will wait until the target BBI-SS PAS becomes available.
    
    
  • Once the subsystem entry for the target BBI-SS PAS becomes available and active, the agent code running on the CICS region determines if the target BBI-SS PAS is participating in AutoConnect. If the target BBI-SS PAS is not participating in AutoConnect, the communications process continues in the static fashion. If the target BBI-SS PAS is participating in AutoConnect, the communications process falls through to the second path.
    
    
• If a directive to use a specific BBI-SS PAS is not found
  • The agent code locates the common communications request queue and places a request that contains information about the CICS region that is used to determine the most eligible BBI-SS PAS.
    
    
  • The agent then waits for the reply from the request queue and if successful, the task ends and the agent goes dormant and waits for the designated BBI-SS PAS to finalize communications.

The communications requests are handled in a first-in, first-out basis by one of the BBI-SS PASs that are participating in AutoConnect. The BBI-SS PAS makes a determination based upon various affinity factors regarding which BBI-SS PAS is best suited to manage the CICS region. The affinity factors are described in AutoConnect-affinity-factors.

Regardless of the number of CICS regions or BBI-SS PASs residing on an LPAR, a single common connection request queue that is used by all of them. The following figure shows the relationship between multiple BBI-SS PASs, multiple CICS regions and the common connection request queue.