ACF2/CICS infostorage records vs ACF2PARM file considerations

Products

• ACF2
• ACF2 - z/OS
• ACF2 - MISC

Issue/Introduction

Are the ACF2/CICS CICS-related infostorage records required or can the ACF2/CICS ACF2PARM file still be used?

What are the advantages of using the CICS-related infostorage record?

Is there a way to convert CIC Control records to ACF2PARMs in one shot with any utility?

Resolution

The ACF2/CICS CICS-related Infostorage records also known as C-CIC records are optional. The C-CIC records provide administrative benefits in managing the ACF2/ CICS interface initialization options.

The C-CIC records can be used to replace the ACF2PARM parameter file or both the ACF2PARM parameter file and C-CIC records can be used concurrently. To assist in the task of migrating from the ACF2PARM records to the new C-CIC records, there is a migration utility called ACFAEMIG. Details on this utility can be found in section "The ACFAEMIG Conversion Utility" in the ACF2/CICS Support Guide. There are administrative and auditing advantages to using C-CIC records in place of the ACF2PARM parameter file:

• Security for a CICS region can be completely controlled by the Security Administrator.

• Temporary changes to the CICS interface options continue to be supported by the ACFM transaction and will report on such dynamic changes to the ACF2LOG report.

• Standard ACF2 scope controls and alter/list permissions provide for decentralized administration.

• All changes made to C-CIC records are logged to SMF and might be reported by the ACFRPTEL Infostorage Database Update Log report program.

• ACF2 masking can be used to share common records among multiple CICS systems.