The IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/OS supports channels and containers for EXEC CICS LINK. In this respect CICS containers can be considered as named COMMAREAs without the 32 KB limit.

The Natural CICS Interface supports CICS containers in two ways:

1. Via a special SET CONTROL 'P=CC', the CALL statement parameter data is passed in a container.

2. When the NTCICSP macro parameter CNTCALL is set to ON, a %P=C CALL automatically uses a CICS container rather than a CICS COMMAREA, when the parameter data passed with the CALL statement exceeds 32 KB.

In both cases, the default container name is NCI-COMMAREA unless a container name is defined explicitly via application programming interface USR4204N prior to the "real" CALL statement.