Using System State Manager › Define Prerequisite Resources › Specify the Name of Prerequisite Resources

Specify the Name of Prerequisite Resources

The automation programmer has the option of specifying a system name as part of a prerequisite resource name. SSM parses the system name and passes it to process action code as an environmental variable. SSM processes the prerequisite as local if any of the following cases:

• The system name is omitted.
• The XPREREQ process action is not enabled. For more information, see Process Events.
• The system name is specified as a single asterisk (*).

To specify a system name as part of a prerequisite name, use the following syntax:

[[[system name.][ssid].]table.]resource

system name

1 to 9 characters in length. There are two special cases for prerequisite names that have a non-blank system name:

• If the value of system name is an asterisk (*), then the prerequisite is on the local system
• For a Work Load Manager (WLM) resource request, if system name is specified, the value of ssid is WLM, and the value of table is *SCHENV, then the WLM API evaluates the resource

Both of the above are handled by SSM without asserting an XPREREQ process event. For all other cases when system name is non-blank, SSM asserts an XPREREQ event to process the name. However, if XPREREQ is not enabled, then SSM processes the prerequisite as if it were local.

Customers are encouraged to use system name to implement their own prerequisite types, such as a system affinity requirement or an ARM element name status. However, to avoid future conflicts over naming conventions, an exclamation point (!) should be used as the first character of any system name. The remaining 8 characters of the name can be any character string. System names starting with any character other than an exclamation point may cause unpredictable results in future releases of CA OPS/MVS.

When a system other than local or WLM is specified, the automation programmer is responsible for providing a REXX program that obtains any cross-system status needed.

Important! If you designate a system name, then you must provide an XPREREQ action and enable the event. If this action is not present and enabled, then the SSM engine will process the specification as if it were local.

ssid

1 to 4 characters in length. ssid cannot be specified unless system name is specified. If only one character is specified, then the prefix OPS is added to it to form the subsystem name. If ssid is blank or an asterisk (*), then the name of the local CA OPS/MVS SSID is used.

Note: An SSID name of WLM is reserved for use by WLM-related resources only.

table

1 to 18 characters in length. The name of the RDF table that contains the resource description.

resource

1 to 18 characters in length. The name of the resource.