Agents › DevTest CICS Agent › CICS Agent Operation

CICS Agent Operation

Starting the DevTest CICS Agent and Exits

The CICS Agent and exits are started during CICS startup PLT processing. The agent and exits can also be started manually by running the TKOI transaction or with the monitor transaction TKOM. The TKOI transaction installs the exits and starts the agent transaction, TKOA.

Stopping the DevTest CICS Agent and Exits

The CICS Agent and exits are stopped during CICS shutdown PLT processing. The agent and exits can also be stopped manually by running the TKOR transaction or with the monitor transaction TKOM.

In rare circumstances, the CICS Agent transaction, TKOA, can fail to terminate. If you suspect this is the case, use the CEMT I TAS command to confirm whether TKOA is still running. If it is, use the CEMT SET TAS(nnn) PURGE or CEMT SET TAS(nnn) FORCEPURGE command as appropriate to terminate TKOA.

Impact on Virtualized CICS LINK Commands

In rare cases, virtualization of a CICS LINK can fail. In this event, the CICS LINK returns to the application with the "Invalid Request" (INVREQ) condition: EIBRCODE=x'E00000000000' and EIBRESP=16. This situation typically results in a transaction abend, unless the application has INVREQ condition handling implemented. You can use EIBRESP2 to determine the exact cause of the virtualization failure:

500 / x'1F4'

No playback response was received from the VSE. This is most likely due to a timeout. The timeout interval is set to 10 seconds. Contact Customer Support if the timeout value must be changed.

501 / x'1F5'

DevTest CICS Agent is down. The "After CICS LINK" exit detected that the DevTestCICS Agent is down. No playback response can be expected.

502 / x'1F6'

Virtualization failed. A playback response was received from the Service Virtualization and updating the CICS LINK COMMAREA or CHANNEL/CONTAINERs failed. See the CICS job log for a CICS command failure message.

503 / x'1F7'

The DevTest LPAR Agent was shut down, resulting in cancellation of all pending playback requests.

Impact on Virtualized CICS DTP/MRO Commands

In rare cases, virtualization of a CICS DTP/MRO command (ALLOCATE, FREE, SEND, RECEIVE, CONVERSE, or EXTRACT ATTRIBUTES) can fail. In this event, the CICS command returns to the application with the "Invalid Request" (INVREQ) condition: EIBRCODE=x'E00000000000' and EIBRESP=500. This situation typically results in a transaction abend, unless the application has INVREQ condition handling in place. You can use EIBRESP2 to determine the exact cause of the virtualization failure:

501 / x'1F5'

DevTest CICS Agent is down. The "After CICS LINK" exit detected that the DevTest CICS Agent is down. No playback response can be expected.

502 / x'1F6'

No response was received from Service Virtualization.

503 / x'1F7'

An invalid response was received from the Service Virtualization. See the CICS job log for a CICS command failure message.

504 / x'1F8'

The session table was full.

505 / x’1F9’

An attempt to add the playback request to the playback queue failed.

506 / x’1FA’

The XEIIN WAIT timeout expired before a response was received from the Service Virtualization.

507 / x’1FB’

A GETMAIN for the request or response failed.

Monitor Transaction (TKOM)

With the Monitor Transaction (TKOM), you can:

• Check the status of the agent and exits
• View the Global Work Area (GWA) in hexidecimal
• View some of the GWA fields formatted/decoded
• Check the recording and playback counts
• Check the program table counts
• View the program table
• Start and stop the agent
• Start and stop the exits
• Check the current depth (count) and high watermarks (Max) of the three main queues:

  Recording Queue (RecQ):

  • Defines the queue of recorded images.

  Playback Queue (PlbQ):

  • Defines the queue of playback images to be sent to the DevTest LPAR Agent.

  LPAR Agent Queue (LPAQ):

  • Defines the queue of playback images waiting for a response from the DevTest LPAR Agent.
• Determine the task number of the agent transaction

The Monitor Transaction displays as follows: