Commitment Control Facility

The Commitment Control Facility is an automatic procedure that is used to prevent partial processing of an in-flight multiple update transaction.  A multiple update transaction is one that requires more than one file operation to complete the transaction.  If a failure occurs after the first file operation and before all subsequent operations have completed successfully, the files involved in the transaction are not synchronized.

An example of this type of transaction is a master file update followed by an entry on an audit trail file.  If the system were to fail after the master file update and the associated audit trail record were not written, the audit file would not accurately reflect all updates to the master file.  Commitment control creates an environment where a failure at any time prior to the completion of the transaction results in the removal of the partial transaction; this leaves the files as if the transaction had never been started.  Commitment control is used in online applications that perform multiple updates for a transaction (such as Account/Center Master File Maintenance).

A more detailed description of Commitment Control can be found in the IBM Control Program Facility documentation.