To use OAM in a Parallel Sysplex, in which multiple OAMs share a common DB2 database and communicate between instances of OAM, it is necessary for each instance of OAM that is to be part of an OAMplex to join an XCF group. Creating or updating the CBROAMxx PARMLIB member to include the OAMXCF statements is required to assign OAM instances to an XCF group. Each OAM that joins the group must supply the XCF group name and a member name for that instance of OAM in the sysplex. Keywords for the OAMXCF statement for that instance of OAM in the OAMplex are provided in the CBROAMxx PARMLIB member that allow specification of the XCF group and member name to become part of the XCF group. All instances of OAM that join the same XCF become an OAMplex. The scope of the OAMplex must match the scope of the DB2 sharing group. See Using the UPDATE command to set OAMXCF values for information on changing the OAMXCF values dynamically and on defining the values when the CBROAMxx PARMLIB member is not used at initialization.

In the Parallel Sysplex, using transaction shipping through XCF, it is possible for a transaction to take too long to complete or for a response to never be returned for completion. OAM fails requests after a certain amount of time in order to free a user from a wait state. The XCFTIMEOUT keyword, available in the OAMXCF statement, allows you to customize timeout values for your environment. These various timeout values (in seconds) specify the length of time that an instance of OAM in the sysplex is to wait for completion of a transaction that was shipped to another instance of OAM in the sysplex. If a response is not received within the specified timeout value, OAM fails the request, returning a nonzero return and reason code to the caller. Many factors determine the expected response time for a transaction, such as optical compared to tape, reads compared to writes, and automated compared to manual environments. OAM provides different timeout values for different transaction types and environments.

Related reading: For the procedure for adding OAMs to an OAMplex, see Adding OAM systems to an existing OAMplex.

Figure 2 is an example of an OAMXCF statement in the CBROAMxx PARMLIB member that can be used as a sample in your installation. The descriptions of these keywords are found in the discussion of the OAMXCF keyword definitions.

The syntax for the OAMXCF statement follows.

OAMXCF statement syntax

>>-OAMXCF--+------------------------+--------------------------->
           '-OAMGROUPNAME(oamgroup)-'   

>--+--------------------------+--------------------------------->
   '-OAMMEMBERNAME(oammember)-'   

>--XCFTIMEOUT-+-(--XCFOPTREADA--(seconds)--)--+----------------><
              +-(--XCFOPTREADM--(seconds)--)--+   
              +-(--XCFOPTWRITEA--(seconds)--)-+   
              +-(--XCFOPTWRITEM--(seconds)--)-+   
              +-(--XCFTAPEREADA--(seconds)--)-+   
              '-(--XCFTAPEREADM--(seconds)--)-'