Making a work or a production IODF

A work IODF can be modified and updated; it serves as your “working copy”.

A production IODF is used by IPL to build UCBs and EDTs. It is also used to build IOCDSs and IOCP input data sets. Several users can view a production IODF concurrently and make reports of it, but it cannot be modified.

To create a pair of associated work files, the work IODF and the work configuration file, from a production IODF/configuration pair, use action File ---> Make Work….
To create a pair of associated production files from a work IODF/configuration pair, use action File ---> Build Production….

When building a production IODF from a work IODF where XMP processors are defined, a production IODF can only be built if all logical channels (CHPIDs) of all XMP processors have PCHID values defined. If at least one PCHID value is missing, HCM does not build a production IODF, but flags the work IODF as validated. In this case, you receive at least one error message saying that channel path(s) do not have a physical channel assigned, and you also get an informal message saying that the current IODF is now valid except of missing PCHIDs. Select one of the following alternatives to integrate the missing PCHIDs into the work IODF:

Alternative 1: The most comfortable method is to invoke the CHPID Mapping Tool Support from either the Utilities menu or from the Edit Processor dialog (see Editing a processor). This alternative is further described in Using the CHPID Mapping Tool Support utility.
Alternative 2: Switch to HCD and use the validated work IODF to generate an IOCP input file suitable for the use with the CHPID Mapping Tool. You can find detailed information about how HCD can interact with the CHPID Mapping Tool in the applicable z/OS HCD User's Guide or z/VM: I/O Configuration book. The output of this process now is a complete and valid work IODF from which you can build the production IODF. When loading the modified IODF back into HCM again, you need to resynchronize HCD and HCM data as described in The IODF load / resync process.
Alternative 3: You can use the mapping information provided by the CHPID Mapping Tool to type in the PCHIDs manually into the HCM Create CHPIDs dialog (see Create CHPIDs).

For any OS configuration that specifies a D/R site OS configuration name as described in D/R site OS configurations, the D/R site OS configuration is automatically generated when building the production IODF.

If the configuration is MCF-enabled…

… the MCF will be copied to the production IODF when it is built. The other way round, the MCF will be copied back to the work IODF when creating a work IODF again from a production IODF.

The master configuration associated with a production IODF is a work configuration file. However, when loading an MCF-enabled production IODF via File ---> IODFs… ---> Load, HCM offers to create a production configuration file (.hcr/.hcrz).

Production configuration files are considered 'read-only snapshots' of a configuration. Therefore, they do not participate in the normal MCF operations: they are not refreshed via download from the host MCF, and they do not update the host MCF via upload.

If a production IODF does not yet have an associated MCF, a user with a production configuration file may enable the configuration for MCF sharing. He may not disable the configuration for MCF sharing, however, for the following reason:

Other users may own a work configuration file associated with the production IODF. They may apply changes to their configurations (affecting non-IODF objects only). These changes will be propagated to (and from) the MCF as usual.
The user owning a production configuration file associated with the same IODF is not aware of such changes, because a production configuration file is not refreshed with updates from the MCF. Therefore, HCM does not allow you to set the access mode to Single user mode for production configuration files, because this would delete the central MCF and other users could not receive these applied changes.

For more information about how to create work and production IODFs, read the following topics: