Brian, you really don't need more FICON cards then 2 to support CTC connections between lpars. It all comes down to how much redundancy you want. We support connections between 11 lpars on one CEC with just 2 cards. We use one card as what we call the primary connection and one card we call the alternate connection. The idea is to isolate the pairs to a single card incase of a failure. This was only those pairs are affected and the other pair is still functioning. There is a difference in setting up the CTCs definitions depending on if you are using a set of FICON switches or not. Most examples you see show FICON switches. We found out the hard way when we converted off of FICON switches you need to code a serial number in the control unit definition to make the connection work properly.
When you get XCF working across the CTCs then software like GRS will use XCF for its communications. If you don't get XCF working then you have to code stuff to tell GRS how to communicate between lpars. You need to look at other software as well. I believe some things like CICS will see that XCF is running and it might try to create a XCF group on the fly for communications. Thanks.. Paul Feller GTS Mainframe Technical Support -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Gadi Ben-Avi Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2020 2:18 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Re: Base SYSPLEX setup [EXTERNAL] Hi Brian, When building a sysplex using CTC's, each LPAR mist have connectivity to all of the other LPARS. If you have more than two LPARS, it gets complicated very fast. I've always had to get help from IBM for defining the CTC's in HCD. Once you have to connectivity defined, the rest is fairly easy. It's all in the 'Setting up a sysplex' Manual. You have to setup COUPLExx members in parmlib. Here you define the devices that are used for communication. Once that is done and all of the systems are in the sysplex, GRS knows it (I think) and can be defined and used. IF you have two LPARS, then two ficon cards are enough for two sets of communication paths. If you have three LPARS, then you will need 3 Ficon cards If you have four LPARS, then you will need 6 ficons cards This assumes that you have two paths between LPARs to avoid a single point of failure. The IOCP definitions also get complicated the more LPARs you have. Maybe getting an ICP (A dedicated CPU for the coupling facility) and more memory, will not be as expensive as you thing, and will be a lot simpler. Gadi -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of Brian Westerman Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2020 10:05 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Base SYSPLEX setup Hi, I'm looking for information on how to set up a base SYSPLEX with only Ficon CTC's that seem to be referred to as XCF CTC's. I'm sure someone had done this before and is probably doing it now for Multiple LPARs that are running on the same processor CEC. Configuration help (parms etc.) would be greatly appreciated. I think all we need to do to connect the 3 existing LPARs is purchase 2 FICON cards (we currently have no extras). Unfortunately, the IBM docs seem to talk a lot about the full parallel sysplexes (with Coupling facilities), but we don't have them, and they seem to be a great deal more expensive than FICON cards which are all we need to implement GRS anyway (that's our goal). We can also apparently create a virtual CF, but the overhead appears to be far greater than we can spare. Any CXF CTC setup information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Brian ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN Email secured by Check Point ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: This message originated outside your organization. Please use caution when opening links or attachments. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
