How to create system-unique rule data sets for OPS/MVS

Products

OPS/MVS Event Management & Automation

Issue/Introduction

How to create system-Unique Rule Data Sets for OPS/MVS Event Management and Automation?

Environment

OPS/MVS-Event Management & Automation-for JES2

Resolution

When using OPS/MVS on multiple systems in a shared DASD and shared catalog environment, the vast majority of AOF rules are used on all systems. A subset of those rules execute on some systems and not on others. The recommended way of doing this is to share those rule data sets on all systems and include code in the INIT section of those rules to decide on which systems to allow the enablement of the rule to complete successfully. See the CHKSYS sample rule for the details on taking this approach. This article describes another methodology for creating and using a unique non-shared rule data set for each system.

To demonstrate this new methodology, let's suppose that you have three systems with system names of SYSA, SYSB and SYSC, and that you have defined the following OPS/MVS parameter values on all the aforementioned systems: a RULEPREFIX value of OEM.OPSMVS and a RULESUFFIX value of RULES. You can define a RULESET name of SYSNAME that represents a data set name of OEM.OPSMVS.SYSNAME.RULES but actually refers to unique data set names on each of the three systems as follows:

On SYSA - OEM.OPSMVS.SYSA.SYSRULES
On SYSB - OEM.OPSMVS.SYSB.SYSRULES
On SYSC - OEM.OPSMVS.SYSC.SYSRULES

Note that the suffix of the system-unique data sets (SYSRULES) is different than the RULESUFFIX value (RULES). This prevents OPS/MVS from directly treating all of these individual data sets as rule data sets. It is of course possible to use a different prefix, a different suffix, or both for the extended alias rule data sets. For this example, we take the approach of using only a different suffix because it is likely that OPS/MVS already has the appropriate security access to any data sets with names beginning with the RULEPREFIX value. However, it should be noted that using a unique prefix for the symbolic-related rule data sets will have a slight positive effect on performance.

Use the following IDCAMS statements to set up the extended alias for the rule data sets described above:

DEFINE ALIAS ( NAME('OEM.OPSMVS.SYSNAME.RULES') -
SYMBOLICRELATE('OEM.OPSMVS.&SYSNAME..SYSRULES'))

This allows OPS/MVS on each system to use a single system related RULESET called SYSNAME that actually represents a unique AOF rule data set on each z/OS image. This mechanism takes advantage of the fact that each system has a common system symbol named &SYSNAME that contains the unique system name for that system.

Using OPSVIEW option 4.5.1 or ADDRESS AOF to list the RULESETs, you will see a RULESET named SYSNAME on each of the systems that share the catalog. However that RULESET represents a different data set on each system. If you have not created a system-unique data set on any of the systems that share the catalog, you will encounter an error when you attempt to access the RULESET on that system.

A note of warning: Broadcom does not recommend that you use this technique to replicate rules and make slight changes in each one for each individual system. It is preferable to have a single shared rule that uses OPS/REXX logic to take system unique actions and maintain a single rule to do this.

The above example creates a single set of extended alias rule data sets. Using other system symbols, you can create multiple sets of system unique rule data sets configured this way. You can use the z/OS DISPLAY SYMBOLS command or the OPSYSSYM OPS/REXX function to list all of the defined system symbols.