Mainframe, MVS and zOS Discussion

Hi,

I need to ask a conceptual question for which I don't have all the details with me. The question is like this:

We've a front end, which is written in SAP. They want to get some results from our CICS programs. Two such programs (pgm1 and pgm2) can provide the results from the SAP. Both programs provides nearly the same results but pgm1 provides less information, say 9 values, while pgm2 can provide with more values say 12 values. SAP needs 10 values, so they choose to use pgm1 BUT pgm1 can handle 1 request at a time while pgm2 can handle 10 such requests together. The reason given is COMMAREA does limitation does not allow pgm1 to handle more requests simultaneously.

I'm just getting involved in this so I might not have explained it very well but this is how the situation is. But can there be really a limitation of COMMAREA here and can we use TDQs for this? I might try to get more information but if someone has faced similar issues please guide with your comments or with some documents I'll go through them.

googling with cics+commarea+size+limits
would have got You the requested info without waiting for a forum reply

remember that there might be limits imposed NOT by CICS but by the application architecture
and we cannot know about the application architecture imposed limits

Yes, there is an absolute limit of 32K minus a few bytes. This is because the length field is 2 bytes and won't allow more than 32K.

and can we use TDQs for this?

IBM has provided a solution to the DFHCOMMAREA length problem and it is NOT to use TDQ. Research channels and containers in CICS for more information.