In CICS/VSE, an area of storage that is common to all address spaces in the system. VSE/ESA has two shared areas. The first shared area (24 bit) is allocated at the start of the address space and contains the supervisor, the SVA (for system programs and the system GETVIS area), and the shared partitions.The second shared area (31 bit) is allocated at the end of the address space and contains the SVA (31 bit) for system programs and the system GETVIS area. See also private area.