Running discovery and loading the system model

The system model is a representation of the all the z/OS® images, CICS® systems, associated subsystems, and other logical system information, in the sysplex. The model is created by the CICS DA server when the discovery action is run. When the discovery operation completes you load the model into your CICS Explorer® workspace.

About this task

When discovery runs on an MVS™ image, the names of the TCP/IP stacks are queried to obtain the primary IP address of those stacks. The z/OS UNIX System Services host service is used to query the domain name server and resolve the IP address to a name. If a name is returned, this name is passed to the CICS DA server. If no name is returned, then the IP address is passed to the CICS DA server.

Because this part of the discovery process runs on the MVS image, the name for the primary IP address might be a locally administered name that is not visible to the client. If that is the case, then the client might need to have its TCP/IP configuration altered; for example, by altering the client hosts file, to allow the CICS DA discovery phase to complete. If the discovered IP address does not resolve to a name on the server, and the discovered IP address is not reachable, then the discovery process fails.

When you initiate discovery from the client, the CICS DA server starts a number of discovery tasks. The first discovery task is to identify all the MVS images in the sysplex. The discovery tasks then look at the regions that are running on each selected MVS image and identify supported releases of CICS, other running subsystems, and any Authorized Cross-Memory (AXM) servers. The discovered resources are then further analyzed, and any associated resources and logical system information, such as connections, are identified and the model is created in the server. The discovery might take a long time, depending on the number of MVS images in your sysplex and the number of subsystems discovered. However, you can continue to view a model that you have previously loaded while the discovery tasks are running, but you cannot make changes to the model.

Note: CICS DA discovers only information in a single sysplex. If you have a CICSplex that spans more than one sysplex, CICS DA does not return any information about the resources outside the local sysplex where CICS DA is installed.
CICS DA discovers the following information:
  • CICS Coupling Facility Data Table (CFDT) servers
  • CICS named counter servers
  • CICSplexes
  • CICSPlex® SM WUI servers
  • CICS regions (managed and unmanaged)
  • CICS system groups
  • CICS temporary storage servers
  • CICS Transaction gateways
  • CMAS networks
  • CMASs
  • DB2®
  • IMS™
  • MVS images
  • RTA specifications
  • WebSphere® MQ
  • WLM specifications
  • z/OS systems
Note: If a system, CICS region, or one of the other resources is not active, it is not discovered unless it is part of a CICSplex definition. CICS DA discovers both managed and unmanaged CICS regions, but it does not discover any associated resources for the unmanaged CICS regions.
When discovery is complete, you can load the model into the CICS DA client.

This task initiates a discovery operation on the CICS DA server and loads the model into the CICS DA client. You must have an active CICS DA connection before you can initiate discovery.

Procedure

  1. Open the CICS DA perspective. The DA Explorer view displays a list of your DA connection names. Right-click the connection name that you want to run the discovery against, and then click Discover. The discovery request is sent to the CICS DA server. A message is written to the CICS DA Console, and the status, Running discovery is shown in the workbench status bar. When discovery completes a discovery report is written to the CICS DA console, and the Console view is brought to the front so the view is visible.
    Note: If the connection between the client and the server is interrupted for any reason, the status Running discovery is still displayed. However, the server is unable to notify the client when discovery completes and the Console view is not updated. Apparently discovery never completes. You can review the entries in the CICS DA audit log to see whether discovery is complete, or rerun the action if necessary. For more information about the CICS DA audit log, see the related links.
  2. In the DA Explorer view, right-click the connection name that you ran the discovery against, and click Load. The Load CICS Deployment Assistant Model window is displayed. The model is retrieved from the server and a preview of the model is displayed in the window. You can expand the navigation tree to see the model content.
  3. Click Finish to load the model into the CICS DA client.

Results

If you have a local model, when you click Finish CICS DA deletes the local model. The new model is then loaded into your local workspace and is shown in the connection navigation tree in the DA Explorer view.

An example of the model for the CICS DA connection named Production. The model tree shows the discovered resources, and the total count for each resource in parentheses after the type.
You can expand the sections to see the individual resources in the sysplex, and open each resource in an editor to see more detail. For more information, see the related links.