Common Services r14.1 introduced a new service named the Common System Symbol Service. This new service acts as an extension of the existing System Symbols defined in the IEASYSMxx member of SYS1.PARMLIB. The CA Common System Symbols Service lets CA products create, set, and use more system symbols.
Some CA products may use specific system symbols that are not provided by z/OS. The Common System Symbol Service simply adds the following symbols to those that already exist:
VMUSERID - If the system is executing as a guest of a VM system, then this contains the Userid of the VM system. If not a guest, you'll see a value of ++++++.
LPARNAME - The name of the LPAR where this is executing.
HRDWNAME - The hardware name from IODF.
SMFID - SMFID as defined on the SID parameter in SRMPRMxx. This becomes available after the SMF address space successfully initializes.
OSLEVEL - A 6 character value consisting of the OS version, release, and modlevel.
The following variables are not made part of the static system symbol table but are available in the PARMLIB "IF" logic.
OSNAME - Operating System product name.
OSNMVR - A concatenation of OSNAME and OSLEVEL.
If you have a separate application to define these symbols dynamically, you can suppress their automatic definition by editing the CAIMST00 member in SYS1.PARMLIB. Simply locate the SYSSYM parm and change the default value of SYSSYM (YES) to SYSSYM (NO). Please keep in mind, however, that this change will not go into effect until after the next IPL.
For more details on the Common System Symbol Service, please refer to the latest copy of the r14.1 CA Common Services for z/OS Reference Guide, Chapter14: Address Space.