CICS Assessment Test

A Customer Information Control System (CICS) Assessment Test evaluates candidates for their proficiency in mainframe transaction processing using CICS, a middleware designed for online transaction processing in large-scale enterprise systems. CICS plays a crucial role in facilitating real-time interactions between users and backend systems, making it essential for organizations relying on mainframe technology.

A CICS Assessment Test assesses candidates on:

1. CICS Fundamentals: Understanding of CICS architecture, components, and features, including Transaction Servers, Program Control Blocks (PCBs), Task Control Blocks (TCBs), and Communication Control Blocks (CCBs).
2. CICS Commands and Transactions: Proficiency in using CICS commands and transaction identifiers (TIDs) to initiate, manage, and monitor transactions within CICS regions, including START, EXEC, RETURN, and ABEND commands.
3. CICS Programming: Skill in developing and debugging CICS programs using programming languages such as COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, or C/C++, including program design, coding standards, error handling, and performance optimization techniques.
4. CICS Resource Management: Knowledge of managing CICS resources, such as files, queues, databases, and temporary storage (TSQ/ TDQ), to ensure efficient data access, integrity, and concurrency control in transaction processing environments.
5. CICS Intercommunication: Understanding of intercommunication between CICS regions and other mainframe subsystems or external systems using mechanisms such as Distributed Program Link (DPL), CICS Transaction Gateway (CTG), and CICS Web Services.
6. CICS Security: Familiarity with CICS security features and controls, including resource-level security, transaction authorization, terminal validation, and encryption, to protect sensitive data and prevent unauthorized access or misuse.
7. CICS Performance Tuning: Ability to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in CICS applications and systems, including tuning options for transaction routing, memory management, task prioritization, and workload balancing.
8. CICS Monitoring and Debugging: Skill in monitoring CICS regions, analyzing transaction traces, and diagnosing performance issues or errors using tools such as CICS Transaction Gateway (CTG), CICS Explorer, and IBM Debug Tool for z/OS.
9. CICS Integration: Knowledge of integrating CICS with other mainframe subsystems, middleware platforms, databases, messaging systems, and external APIs to enable seamless interoperability and data exchange in heterogeneous environments.
10. CICS Administration: Understanding of CICS administration tasks, including region startup/shutdown, resource configuration, workload management, transaction routing, and disaster recovery planning, to ensure high availability and reliability of CICS environments.

Overall, our CICS Assessment Test measures candidates' knowledge, skills, and experience in mainframe transaction processing using CICS, providing valuable insights for organizations seeking qualified professionals to design, develop, deploy, and maintain CICS-based applications and systems.