Each OS/390 or z/OS system that needs access to the sysplex coupling facility must be connected with at least one coupling facility channel, whether the system runs on the same processor as the Coupling Facility Central Processor (CFCP) or on a separate processor.
As part of the I/O configuration definitions for each coupling facility channel, you need to define the channel path attachments for all processors and coupling facility channels.
Use coupling facility channels to connect the coupling facility to the processors in the sysplex.
When defining the coupling facility, you must dedicate a single central processor (CP) to the partition that runs the CFCP.
The CFCP does not support dynamic I/O reconfiguration or PR/SM LPAR reconfiguration. To activate reconfiguration changes, you must power-on reset (POR) the processor that runs the CFCP.
Define channel paths for both the coupling facility channel attachment to the processor and the coupling facility channel attachment to the coupling facility. For each system in the sysplex, you can use the HCD panels to define the I/O configuration data set (IOCDS) that must include definitions for the coupling facility channel paths.
You must specify a COUPLExx PARMLIB member in SYS1.PARMLIB for each system in the sysplex. The COUPLExx member defines the following values:
Sysplex name, sysplex couple data set names, and other couple data set names.
Failure detection interval, operator notification interval, and cleanup interval.
Default message buffer space, default message size for a signaling path, and local message buffer space.
For additional information, refer to IBM's Sysplex documentation.