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Retrieving operational data from running CICS regions

This sample playbook demonstrates how to use the cmci_get module from the ibm_zos_cics collection to retrieve operational data from running CICS regions.

This example retrieves information corresponding to the CICSRGN resource table, but can be adapted to retrieve information about any of the resource tables supported by CICSPlex SM. The retrieved information is written to a CSV file, which you can open as a spreadsheet.

This sample additionally shows how to automate installation of pre-requisites for the cmci_* modules.

Requirements

  • Python 2.7+
  • Ansible 2.9+

Getting Started

You will need to have set up the CMCI REST API in your CICS environment. You can enable the CMCI REST API in either CICSPlex SM environments, or in stand-alone CICS regions. The cmci_* modules use the CMCI REST API to interact with your CICS environment.

For detailed installation instructions please consult the documentation.

You can install the IBM z/OS CICS collection from Ansible Galaxy by using the ansible-galaxy CLI, which is supplied with your Ansible installation:

ansible-galaxy collection install ibm.ibm_zos_cics

For more information about the CMCI REST API, see the CMCI overview in the CICS TS documentation.

Because this playbook only uses the CMCI REST API, it can be run on the control node directly, without having to configure an inventory. Generally you'll be able to use this trick with any of the CMCI modules. In this example, we run the cmci_get module on localhost, i.e. the Ansible control node, by setting the target host to localhost. Running the CMCI modules on the control node can be a good idea, because you don't have to deal with the complexity of an unnecessary SSH connection, and you don't have to install the modules' dependencies on the remote host.

The cmci_* modules have pre-requisites that need to be installed into the Python environment in which the module executes. In this case, the cmci_get module will be executed on localhost, i.e. the Ansible control node. The playbook demonstrates how you can ensure the pre-requisites are installed (wherever the module runs) before the cmci_get module is executed. More information about the cmci_* module pre-requisites can be found in the documentation.

Run report.yml

You can run the playbook without modification:

ansible-playbook report.yml

The playbook will prompt for required parameters. After parameters have been supplied, the playbook installs the CMCI module dependencies to the python environment. The playbook makes a CMCI GET request to regions in the supplied CICSPlex SM context, and writes the file report.csv to the current directory with a report on a subset of attributes for each region. You can open this file in a text editor, or as a spreadsheet to look at the results of the report.

What next?

  • To avoid being prompted for parameters, you can try supplying the input parameters on the command line directly:

    ansible-playbook -e "context=MYCTXT cmci_host=example.com" report.yml

    Parameters specified in this way won't be prompted for. Have a look at the vars_prompt section of the playbook to work out the names of the variables to use on the CLI.

    You can also edit the playbook to switch the vars_prompt for a vars section, to stop Ansible prompting for the values when executing the playbook. You will still be able to override any default values you set with the -e command line argument. For information about how to set variables, see the Ansible documentation.

  • Try editing report.yml to change the attributes included in the report.

    You may want to uncomment the debug task to see the full response from CICSPlex SM, which includes all the attribute names applicable to the target resource. In this example, the returned attributes will correspond to what's listed in the CICSRGN resource table.

  • Try adding a filter argument to the cmci_get task, to restrict the report to a subset of your CICS regions. For information on how to set a filter for the cmci_get task, see the IBM z/OS CICS modules documentation.

  • Try supplying a different resource for the type argument of the cmci_get task, to request attributes for a different type of resource. You can find available CMCI resource names at CMCI resource names.

  • Look at the other samples to find examples of what else you can do with the CICS collection.

Support

Please refer to the support section for more details.

License

Licensed under Apache License, Version 2.0.

Copyright

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2021.