XCFPOLxx (XCF PR/SM policy)

In a multisystem sysplex on PR/SM™, the XCF PR/SM policy provides a way for the installation to obtain high availability for multisystem applications on the MVS™ systems in the sysplex. You specify the XCF PR/SM policy in a parmlib member. IBM® suggests naming this member XCFPOLxx, where xx is a unique 2-character identifier. You activate (or deactivate) the policy with the SETXCF PRSMPOLICY command, and display the name of the active policy with the DISPLAY XCF,PRSMPOLICY command.

The XCF PR/SM policy allows you to specify the actions that XCF on a system in the sysplex on PR/SM is to take when a “status update missing” or “system gone” occurs on another system in the sysplex.

Some reasons a status update missing condition might occur are:

The system has failed and entered a non-restartable wait state.
The system is in a disabled spin loop.
The operator stopped or reset the system.
The system has failed and cannot dispatch normal work.
The system entered a restartable wait state but the operator has not restarted the system.

A system gone condition occurs after a system reset is confirmed.

The XCF PR/SM policy reduces the need for operator intervention because XCF on a remaining system in the sysplex on PR/SM can automatically reset the failing system, deactivate the LPAR, and reconfigure processor storage for use by the remaining system.

Note: The XCF PR/SM policy in an XCFPOLxx parmlib member will not work unless the installation enables the system to do a reset of an MVS system on an LPAR and deactivate the LPAR on the PR/SM processor. See the PR/SM Planning Guide for information about the assignment of LPARs and processor storage.

For more information about using XCF, see z/OS MVS Setting Up a Sysplex.