Duration
Overview
Description
The CICS labs provide a range of exercises that can be run in your organization’s mainframe training sandbox. Exercises focus on the tasks performed by CICS Administrators and Operators that include displaying CICS resources, system configuration and extracting and analyzing CICS statistics and performance data from SMF.
Audience
The initial two labs are suitable for operators and administrators that use CICS for monitoring and general troubleshooting, while other labs are suitable for CICS administrators who would need to manage CICS configuration and performance.
Prerequisites
A solid understanding of z/OS or the successful completion of the following Interskill courses:
- CICS TS – CICS Transaction Server Introduction 5.6
- CICS TS – Controlling CICS Transaction Server Operations 5.6
- CICS TS – CICS Command Simulation 5.6
Each Lab module below contains its own list of prerequisites or equivalent knowledge, which is displayed when accessing the module.
Objectives
After completing these labs, the student should be able to:
- Interact with a CICS terminal session
- Identify key CICS system initialization parameters
- Display system and terminal information
- Display details about group resources and list
- Identify security configuration settings
- Display information about resources using the main terminal transaction
- Display and analyze CICS statistics and performance data
Course Content
Lab CICS – Interacting and Displaying Information in CICS
Logging On and Accessing a CICS terminal
Invoking the Main Terminal Transaction
Filtering Displays
Entering CICS Commands Via a z/OS Console
Displaying Managed Data Sets and Defined Files
Displaying Active Tasks, Transactions, and Programs
Displaying Units of Work and Temporary Storage Usage
Displaying Information about Messages and Codes
Displaying the VTAM Connection
Lab CICS – CICS System Initialization
Identifying CICS Initialization Messages
Identifying Key System Initialization Parameters and Where They Are Stored
Identifying the Types of CICS START Parameter Variables
Describing the Effect of the Different START Types
Identifying the Number of Defined Resource Groups
Troubleshooting Invalid SIT Overrides
Displaying CICS System Information
Displaying Terminal Information
Lab CICS – Identifying CICS Configuration and Security
Identifying Key Data Sets Used by CICS
Displaying Information about CICS Journal Models and Log Streams.
Invoking CEDA to Display Defined Resource Groups and Lists
Checking Groups and Lists for Consistency
Displaying Resource Types
Viewing Object Characteristics
Identifying If RACF Services Are Active
Identifying If Terminal User Security Is Enabled
Identifying If Transaction, Program, and File Security Is Enabled
Lab CICS – Statistics Retrieval and Performance Monitoring
Displaying the Status of CICS Statistics Recording
Identifying Statistic Intervals and End-of-Day Statistics Time
Extracting SMF Statistics Data and Analyzing the DFHSTUP Statistics Report
Displaying CICS Monitoring Status
Extracting SMF Performance Monitoring Data and Analyzing the DFH$MOLS Report