PRODUCT SHEET CA FAQS Production Control System for z/vse CA FAQS Production Control System for z/vse r5.0 CA FAQS Production Control System for z/vse (CA FAQS PCS for z/vse) is a business process event-driven scheduler that effectively controls the work flow in a z/vse data center. By responding to business events in real time, reducing dependancy on operator action and managing resources, it supports your ability to maximize system throughput and meet your service level agreements Overview Business operates in real time and users expect immediate results. There is little room for error when it comes to processing data and transactions. To address the challenges of managing business system technologies, you need an agile, self managed, business-centric IT environment. This means you must proactively manage the interdependencies between thousands of processing requests that cross your enterprise at any point in time. Business value CA FAQS PCS for z/vse is a mainframe-hosted, event-driven workload automation solution that: Increases operational efficiency Improves productivity Increases availability of critical business services Reduces costs and lowers risk
Features Control event-driven workloads on z/vse systems in real time Reliable and timely information processing on your z/vse system is essential in today s business environment, and to effectively compete, you must go beyond the necessary batch reports and system back-ups and provide real-time response to demands for data and transactions. CA FAQS PCS for z/vse fulfills that business need by helping you manage the workflow on your z/vse system by controlling event-driven workloads in real time. Key capabilities Simple online interface: Manage your production schedule from a simple online interface that can be accessed from CICS, or VTAM. If you are also running CA FAQS Automated Systems Operation for z/vse (CA FAQS ASO for z/vse) you may also manage and monitor your schedule from CMS, ICCF or CA FAQS ASO for z/vse. Regardless of which interface you choose, the look and feel of the interface is the same. Multiple z/vse support: You can control the work flow and schedule events on all your z/vse systems from a single schedule. This simplifies and unifies the activity on all your z/vse systems whether they run standalone, under z/vm or in an LPAR. The schedule can be maintained and monitored from any of the available interfaces within the entire complex of z/vse systems. Event forecasting: The online and batch forecasting programs help you resolve bottle necks in your production schedules. Extensive accounting and auditing facilities: CA FAQS PCS for z/vse maintains an audit history of all activity and an accounting history of all events. The accounting history provides valuable input into the forecasting facility. Enhanced job control: Procedural Control Language enables you to run only those business processes that are needed in a specific situation. Jobs are automatically tailored to the current business environment prior to execution. The CA CIS for z/vse GSS REXX programming language and the Execution Control Language allow you to make business decisions based on the conditions encountered during execution and can dynamically alter the work flow to meet your business needs. CA FAQS PCS for z/vse requires CA CIS for z/vse, a set of common utilities that support and add value to CA FAQS PCS. A robust callable application interface: This easy to use, yet robust, application program interface can be called from both batch and online programs. It integrates CA FAQS PCS for z/vse directly with your application program making a true component of your business process and enhancing automated control of your day to day work flow. 2
Batch control of CICS online resource and processes: You can control your CICS resources and process them directly from batch applications or through the CA CIS for z/vse GSS REXX ADDRESS instruction, which allows specific commands to be passed to CICS. This avoids resource conflicts and allows your batch and online applications to work together seamlessly as a unified business process. CICS functions enable you to: Open or close VSAM files Open or close DL/I databases Pass CEMT commands to CICS Initiate non terminal CICS transactions Initiate simple terminal transaction Check resource availability prior to scheduling events: Not all resources can be shared between processes. This feature ensures that all resources are available before a job is started thus avoiding problems due to resource unavailability. Events can also be triggered by opening or closing a data set resource. Effectively control manual and external events: Manual and unscheduled events are managed though the work and data station facilities of CA FAQS PCS for z/vse. Quickly bypass completed job steps after a failure: If a failure occurs, the Restart Facility makes it easy to restart an event at a point other than the beginning. What s new in CA FAQS PCS for z/vse r5.0 Redesigned event file PDS: The Event PDS SYS$EVT has been redesigned to allow direct access to events. The previous design was based on a sequential access approach that hindered performance for users having thousands of events. Now events can be accessed directly without the overhead of a sequential scan. The event maintenance screens use this direct access to display the information needed quickly. Unless you use the Sort option, you can find any event quickly. Increased flexibility of event naming: In the previous releases of CA FAQS PCS for z/vse, you could only have one event with the same name. Now you can use the group name to distinguish events. For example, an event named BACKUP can exist in the PAYROLL group, the ACCOUNT group or any other group. This feature allows better event management and event name flexibility. Job Status screens: The new Job Status screens display event data such as return codes and additional information about the status of each event. These screens have the same functionality as the event maintenance screens and can be used to follow events in the production environment. 3
Automatic refresh capability for event and job status display: The automatic refresh capability allows you to set the event maintenance and job status screens in automatic redisplay mode so that the screens will redisplay at user-defined intervals. New sorting options for event and job status displays: When using the SORT command, you can now sort the event maintenance and job status screens by specifying any of the event selection fields shown at the top of the screens. Maximize run time: The Maximum Run Time feature allows you to set a time interval for each event. If this time interval elapses after the event has started executing, then messages are displayed on the console. CA Top Secret for z/vse support: If you have activated CA Top Secret for z/vse support in the CA CIS for z/vse GSS subsystem, you can control user access to the panels in CA FAQS PCS for z/vse. For increased security and control of your CA FAQS PCS for z/vse environment, users must sign on to CA Top Secret for z/vse (if it is active), when using the VTAM interface. Event name exception during EVLOAD: When executing an EVLOAD in JCLEVNT, you can tell PCS to exclude events. This feature supports wild cards. Added machine name to online displays: The machine name is now displayed on all CA FAQS PCS for z/vse panels. Wild card support for data set names: You can now use wild cards when specifying data sets for logging and exclusion. CA FAQS PCS for z/vse has moved much of the information about data sets to virtual storage; consequently, data sets are processed more quickly. New notes areas added: Notes have been added to the Forecast Calendar so that you can explain why certain dates or days have been excluded. Notes have also been added to the Global Variable panel to explain how the global variable is used in the production environment. Delivery approach CA Services provides a portfolio of mainframe services delivered through CA Technologies internal staff and a network of established partners chosen to help you achieve a successful deployment and get the desired business results as quickly as possible. Our standard service offerings are designed to speed deployment and accelerate the learning curve for your staff. CA Technologies field-proven best practices and training help you lower risk, improve use/adoption and ultimately align the product configuration to your business requirements. 4
Benefits Maximize z/vse system throughput Today s businesses require reliable and timely information processing on all your operating environments. By responding to business events in real time, reducing dependancy on operator action and managing resources, CA FAQS PCS for z/vse helps you increase operational efficiency, improve productivity, increase availability of critical business services, lower risk and reduce your overall IT costs. The CA Technologies advantage CA FAQS PCS for z/vse helps you more effectively control the work flows in your z/vse data center. It is part of an extensive solution set from CA Technologies that provides security, automation, performance management, scheduling, storage management, database technology, application development and reporting for the z/vse platform. These solutions help you manage, protect and optimize your z/vse systems with maximum efficiency. z/vse is built on a proud heritage of ongoing refinement and innovation that spans four decades. CA Technologies is committed to protecting and extending your z/vse investment by continuing to develop and enhance our z/vse solutions. CA Technologies has 30 years of recognized expertise in robust, reliable, scalable, and secure enterprise-class management software for multiple IT environments-----from mainframe and distributed, to virtual and cloud. The majority of the Global Fortune 500 rely on CA Technologies to manage their evolving IT ecosystems. For additional information, visit CA Technologies at ca.com. Copyright 2011 CA. All rights reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. DB2, IMS, CICS, COBOL, PL/I and z/os are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document as is without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised 5 in advance of the possibility of such damages. CS1447_0711