Offsite Automatic Reply program (DFH$OFAR)

The offsite automatic reply program (DFH$OFAR) is a NETVIEW executable that assists in the disaster recovery of a CICSplex when data sets have been used in RLS mode and OFFSITE=YES has been specified as a system initialization parameter. This utility is needed because the RLS record locks, which preserve data integrity, are not available at the remote site.

DFH$OFAR causes each CICS® region to issue message DFHFC0574 to indicate that RLS offsite recovery is being performed, followed by a WTOR message, DFHFC0575, when it has completed recovery of all RLS data sets which that CICS had updated.

The operator is required to wait until every CICS in the CICSplex has issued the message, and only then reply to the DFHFC0575 messages.

This mechanism protects the RLS data sets from being accessed by new work until all the recovery work in the CICSplex has been completed.

A unique control file should exist before DFH$OFAR is run, which should be accessible from any participating MVS™ image within the sysplex. The control file of DFH$OFAR should contain a record for each participating CICS region.

Each participating MVS image in the Sysplex should have NetView® configured so that when any CICS region issues messages DFHFC0574 or DFHFC0575, DFH$OFAR is called.

DFH$OFAR extracts the relevant input parameters from the message held in the global variables 'token(1/2/..)'. These parameters are the message id, CICS id (APPLID), and the message reply number.

If the message id is DFHFC0574 then DFH$OFAR updates all entries that are not 'message issued' state to 'message waiting'. Otherwise the existing state is preserved.

If the message id is DFHFC0575 then DFH$OFAR updates the record for the CICS entry, denoted by the input CICS id, to 'message issued'. If this is not in the control file, it is ignored. All other entries that are not in 'message issued ' state are set to 'message waiting'. Otherwise the existing state is preserved.

When all entries in the control file are in 'message issued' state, DFH$OFAR generates an automatic reply to each DFHFC0575 message issued.