Configuring and Installing Optional Components › Configuration Tasks for Optional Base Components › Set up the z/OS Automatic Restart Management Facility

Set up the z/OS Automatic Restart Management Facility

z/OS systems include a feature called Automatic Restart Management (ARM), which-in the event of a system failure-provides automatic restarting of jobs and started tasks on the same system or, optionally, across any system in a sysplex. To use the ARM facility, a job or an STC must register with ARM using a sysplex unique element name and it must notify ARM when it is fully initialized and ready to perform work. If the task terminates without issuing a deregister call, ARM restarts the task using policy guidelines defined by the installation in the ARM couple data set. The policy can specify the order of the restarts for the tasks that depend on other tasks as well as the frequency, time, and system resource constraints for restarts. For a detailed description of ARM, see the IBM documentation.

The use of ARM by CA OPS/MVS is limited to restarting the product on the same system on which it was running when it unexpectedly terminated due to a severe error condition such as excess message rate. The STOP command causes CA OPS/MVS to deregister with ARM as part of the normal shutdown. If CA OPS/MVS is canceled or forced from the system, it will not restart unless the ARMRESTART operand is also specified on the z/OS CANCEL or FORCE command.

ARM rules for the AOF are available to control the restarting of other jobs or started tasks. Using the dynamic exit facility of z/OS, CA OPS/MVS installs an ARM restart event exit at the IXC_ELEM_RESTART exit point. Using the data from the parameter list that was passed to this exit (IBM macro IXCYERE), an ARM event is created and passed to the AOF. For AOF ARM rules to execute, the INITARM and ARMRULES parameters must be set to YES.