Translating and validating in a sysplex environment

When running SMS in a sysplex with mixed levels of DFSMS, you must do the following on the system running the highest level of DFSMS:

Define new SMS constructs and ACS routines
Modify existing SMS constructs and ACS routines
Translate your ACS routines
Validate your SCDS

See Altering the SCDS on different DFSMS releases for further information on altering the SCDS.

You can then activate and share the validated SCDS among systems with mixed levels of DFSMS. If you do not translate your ACS routines and validate your SCDS on the highest level of DFSMS, the translation and validation might fail. This failure occurs because some read-only variables are only known to higher levels of DFSMS. It can also occur due to changes in validation rules between releases.

Guideline: Coexistence PTFs allow you to share CDSs among mixed DFSMS levels and switch back to a prior release. However, once the CDSs have been formatted by the higher-level system, the CDS control blocks reflect the new rather than the down-level lengths.

When sharing the same SMS CDSs among mixed releases, or when switching back to a lower-level release using the same SMS CDSs that were formatted by the higher-level system, all coexistence PTFs must be applied to avoid corrupting the CDSs.