Installations often find it useful to share RACF® data between systems. However, in order for systems to share a RACF database they must be in close enough physical proximity to physically share the device on which the database resides. The RACF remote sharing facility (RRSF) expands an installation's ability to share RACF data by removing the restrictions of shared DASD. It allows you to configure your systems into a network of RRSF nodes communicating by way of VTAM® and APPC/MVS or TCP/IP, and share RACF data between these nodes regardless of their physical proximity. You can:

• Give each RRSF node its own copy of the same RACF database, and use remote sharing functions to keep the databases synchronized. Or, selectively synchronize subsets of the database information, such as the user profiles.
• Administer RACF databases remotely–authorized users logged on to one system can direct a RACF command to run on one or more other systems in the RRSF network.
• Automatically synchronize passwords for specified user IDs on systems in the RRSF network.