Monitoring usage in CICS® regions

The CICS® Transaction Server for z/OS® performs much of its program management outside of the contents supervisor framework that most applications use. For the Usage Monitor to accurately detect and record the use of programs in a CICS® region, you must customize each CICS® region where you require detailed program usage monitoring.

To prepare a CICS® region to enable detailed monitoring, you must install the following components:
  • CICS® global user exist (GLUE) programs
  • An enabling program to activate these user exit programs
  • An entry in the program list table (PLT) that triggers the enabling program
The customized JCLLIB library contains the following sample jobs that you can copy and use in your customization:
  • The HZASENAX member contains a sample job to translate, assemble and bind the enabling program.
  • The HZASPLTX member contains a sample job to create a PLT with the required entry to trigger the enabling program. If you use this sample job, verify the name of the enabling program and the PLT suffix before you submit the job.

The CICS® program monitoring facility does not support releases earlier than CICS® Transaction Server version 5, release 1. Different releases of the CICS® Transaction Server require different versions of the GLUE programs. You must ensure that the correct version of these programs is used for each CICS® region. You must also take care when upgrading regions to a later release of CICS® so that the correct version of this module will be used with the newer software.

Installed GLUE modules from older releases of the Usage Monitor will not collect any data for this release of the Usage Monitor. The GLUE modules in this release of the Usage Monitor cannot collect any data for older releases of the Usage Monitor.

The following table lists the required GLUE programs for different versions of the CICS® Transaction Server:

Table 1.
CICS® Transaction Server release Usage Monitor GLUE modules
Version 5, releases 1, 2 and 3 HZAZFTC3, HZAZEII3
Version 5, releases 4, 5 and 6 HZAZFTC4, HZAZEII4

When you implement this CICS® Transaction Server customization, the Usage Monitor can collect and record data related to program name and data set name. The collected data is subject to the Usage Monitor program name and data set name selection and exclusion filters. You can stop data collections from all HZAZFTCx and HZAZEIIx GLUE programs with the CIC(N) Usage Monitor setting. CIC(Y) is the default setting if you do not issue a CIC Usage Monitor command.

Depending upon the level of program usage detail you require, the HZAZFTCx exit might produce sufficient data for your needs, without the HZAZEIIx exit. If you want to access more detailed CICS® data, such as particulars of transactions and the end users involved, a specialized CICS® monitor such as IBM® OMEGAMON® for CICS® on z/OS® is required.