Platform examples

In its simplest form, a platform can consist of one System Management Single Server (SMSS) CICS® region. More complex platform configurations consist of multiple regions arranged in an architecture that provides suitable environments for your applications.

For example, all managed regions within a CICSplex can be defined to a single platform, or managed regions within a CICSplex can be spread across multiple, detached, or overlapping platforms (as a result of the same CICS region being present in more than one platform). This is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1. CICS platform architecture examples
Example A shows a CICSplex containing a single platform that consists of a single CICS region. Example B shows a CICSplex containing a single platform that consists of three CICS regions. Example C shows a CICSplex containing two platforms that are detached from each other, with multiple CICS regions in each platform. Example D shows a CICSplex containing two overlapping platforms, with three CICS regions in each. One of the CICS regions is common to both platforms; for example, this might be a common file-owning region (FOR).

Figure 2 shows some capabilities of a platform. The CICS regions that are Managed Address Spaces (MASs) in the platform are a web-owning region (WOR), an application-owning region (AOR), and a file-owning region (FOR). The CMAS is a CICSPlex® SM Managing Address Space that manages not just the WOR, AOR, and FOR, but also the platform.

Figure 2. Platform capabilities
A CICSplex contains a CMAS and a platform. The platform contains three CICS regions, a WOR, an AOR and an FOR. The WOR provides a TCP/IP service, the AOR provides a JVM server, and the FOR provides a file or a DB2 connection.
You can arrange platforms as logical entities to achieve application separation. Consider this simplified view of a Banking CICSplex:
Figure 3. An example Banking CICSplex
LPAR BANK1MVS contains a CMAS BANKCMAS1 that manages a CICSplex BANKPLEX01. BANKPLEX01 contains a CSYSGRP consisting of six CICS regions.
This Banking CICSplex could be divided into multiple platforms to provide environments for hosting corporate banking and investment banking applications:
Figure 4. An example Banking CICSplex divided into multiple platforms
LPAR BANK1MVS contains a CMAS BANKCMAS1 that manages a CICSplex BANKPLEX01. BANKPLEX01 contains two platforms, one for corporate banking and another for investment banking. The corporate banking platform has two region types, which are each formed from system groups (CSYSGRP). One region type, CORPORATE_BANKING_AOR, contains two CICS regions, and the other region type, CORPORATE_BANKING_WOR, contains one CICS region. The investment banking platform has one region type, INVESTMENT_BANKING, containing three CICS regions.