IDMS/DC and CICS

[bhaskar yamajala]

Fellow listers :

I learned that IDMS DC runs on CICS in the site where I work and I am trying understand how these two things go hand in hand. Can any one out there let me know, how exactly this works ? When IDMS can be accessed through CICS, why do I have to use IDMS DC ? Who exactly will handle DC functions like Terminal I/O, pseudo conversation etc.. ? What is the extra value addition that DC is providing in this case ?

Any information and pointers to documents is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Satya B.

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[Cherlet, Gary , JTS]

The IDMS-DC functionality you are using is Universal Communications Facility
- see Chapter 5: UCF Operations in CA-IDMS System Operations.

In a nutshell - CICS is the Terminal Owning Region (TOR - or in IDMS-DC
terms the Front-end region) and IDMS-DC is the Back-end region. When you
invoke a task code in CICS that activates the front-end to back-end
communication the application runs on the back-end - and the UCF line driver
in IDMS-DC works with an IDMS-DC component that's installed within CICS to
do the terminal IO. The IDMS-DC CICS front-end module uses standard CICS
commands to do the terminal reads and writes.

You can do exactly the same thing from a TSO front-end - except that the
IDMS-DC front-end for TSO uses TSO command processor routines (#TPUT and
#TGET if memory serves) to do the terminal reads and writes - but the
application actually runs inside the IDMS-DC back-end region.

The extra value is for developers in that if don't have Solve or some other
form of multi-application interface (MAI) so that you can signon to multiple
VTAM sessions at the same time - then you can avoid the scenario of having
to log out of CICS so you can establish an IDMS-DC or a TSO session.
Similarly if in an IDMS-DC session you don't have to log out to get into TSO
or CICS. Most shops these days seem to have some kind of MAI interface - so
the need is not so pressing.

From an end user point of view it lets you combine CICS and IDMS-DC
applications into a seamless interface - the user doesn't need to know that
some transactions run solely under CICS and some transactions use IDMS-DC
functionality on the back-end - see in particular Chapter 4: Distributed
Applications using UCF (or APPC) - it's sometimes called UDAS for UCF
Distributed Application Support.

HTH - cheers - Gary

[Petzold, Lutz]

Gary, I beg to differ. What you are calling IDMS-DC is actually IDMS-UCF.
There are no front ends in IDMS-DC. You can run IDMS-DC and IDMS-UCF in the
same IDMS region/address space/cv, but that doesn't make it idms-dc. What
IDMS-DC is, is a terminal owning region with a VTAM or BTAM line driver. In
effect IDMS-DC is like a CICS and IDMS-CV rolled into one. IDMS-UCF buys
you a UCF line driver, and with it you can sysgen a UCF line and with the
IDMS-DC product you can sysgen a VTAM line(s) and run both in the same IDMS
region. For some reason a LOT of IDMS sites chose to bank the farm on
running their applciations in CICS and using IDMS. However, the idea behind
IDMS-DC is that applications are run and developed in an IDMS region and the
applciations are using IDMS-DC terminal management services through IDMS-DC
calls. Of course ADSO is an application development tool that runs in
IDMS-DC. Technically the distinction is that IDMS-DC give you a VTAM line
driver, so the application programs can handle terminal interaction without
using CICS or SHADOW or whatever.

Lutz Petzold

Fellow listers :

Thanks,

Satya B.

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[Linda Campbell]

Only one small caveat....ADSO runs in both DC and UCF. We don't have DC and
we are strictly an ADSO shop (at the moment). We use CICS for terminal
management.

Also, one of the things we discovered recently is that without DC, you don't
get a supported VTAM line driver. One ships with UCF (at least it did in
R14), but CA will not support it if you have problems with it. Without a
VTAM line driver, you have no LU 6.2 capabilities unless you want to buy an
add on product for APPC connection from ADSO.

Linda Campbell

-----Original Message-----
From: IDMS Public Discussion Forum [mailto:IDM...@LISTSERV.IUASSN.COM]On
Behalf Of Petzold, Lutz
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 5:48 AM
To: IDM...@LISTSERV.IUASSN.COM
Subject: Re: IDMS/DC and CICS

Gary, I beg to differ. ... Of course ADSO is an application development
tool that runs in
IDMS-DC. ....

Lutz Petzold

[Cherlet, Gary , JTS]

Point taken - but IDMS/UCF by itself gives you nothing but a line driver -
as it's the IDMS-DC nucleus that let's you do work - that is to run tasks be
they ADS, Cobol, Assembler, or whatever. When you buy IDMS-DC you also get
the BTAM, TCAM, VTAM, SNA, Console, SYSOUTL (and a few other ?) line
drivers.

<humour>The correct specification should then have been an IDMS-DC/UCF
system - which - in the case that batch work, TSO applications, or CICS
transactions use the database side we would then correctly call the
IDMS-CV/DC/UCF system. Now as it's a CA product we must of course call the
whole a CA-IDMS-CV/DC/UCF system - and owing to the "branding" process
within CA we really need to refer to it as an "Advantage CA-IDMS-CV/DC/UCF"
system. </humour> ;-)

I worked with one shop where they simply referred to the whole as "the DC" -
as in "Is the DC up?", when there was some doubt. In another place they
called it "the CV". Where I am at the moment we refer to the various regions
as DEV, PRO and TRN - although each region is an IDMS-CV/DC/UCF region. In
most instances (as we don't run CICS at all) people know what we are talking
about.

Cheers - Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: Petzold, Lutz [mailto:Petz...@AETNA.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, 11 December 2002 12:18
To: IDM...@LISTSERV.IUASSN.COM
Subject: Re: IDMS/DC and CICS

Gary, I beg to differ. What you are calling IDMS-DC is actually IDMS-UCF.
There are no front ends in IDMS-DC. You can run IDMS-DC and IDMS-UCF in the
same IDMS region/address space/cv, but that doesn't make it idms-dc. What
IDMS-DC is, is a terminal owning region with a VTAM or BTAM line driver. In
effect IDMS-DC is like a CICS and IDMS-CV rolled into one. IDMS-UCF buys
you a UCF line driver, and with it you can sysgen a UCF line and with the
IDMS-DC product you can sysgen a VTAM line(s) and run both in the same IDMS
region. For some reason a LOT of IDMS sites chose to bank the farm on
running their applciations in CICS and using IDMS. However, the idea behind
IDMS-DC is that applications are run and developed in an IDMS region and the
applciations are using IDMS-DC terminal management services through IDMS-DC
calls. Of course ADSO is an application development tool that runs in
IDMS-DC. Technically the distinction is that IDMS-DC give you a VTAM line
driver, so the application programs can handle terminal interaction without
using CICS or SHADOW or whatever.

Lutz Petzold

-----Original Message-----
From: Cherlet, Gary (JTS) [mailto:Cherle...@SAUGOV.SA.GOV.AU]
Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 4:46 PM

To: IDM...@LISTSERV.IUASSN.COM
Subject: Re: IDMS/DC and CICS

[sali...@gmail.com]

With the IBM CICS ENVIRONMENT AND IDMS WITHIN IT THE INTERFACE IS A IDMS BUILT INTERFACE UP TO MEET IBM CICS DBDC DATABASE DATA COMMUNICATION SOFTWARE AND IBM CICS STILL CONTROLS STORAGE ACQUISITION BECAUSE CICS GETS ALL LEFT OVER STORAGE AT IPL THAT'S NOT ACQUIRED BY OSCORE, SO IF YOU GET INTO TROUBLE LOOK TO IDMS TO ADDRESS YOUR NEEDS NOT UNLESS THE ERROR CODE IS PREFIX WITH THE (DFH) PREFIX FOR CICS, AND PERSONALLY I'VE WITNESS IDMS ERRORS THAT SAID IBM CICS WAS AT FAULT, BUT WAS IDMS FAULT.

[sali...@gmail.com]

This is why you must know how to read a snap dump, address space dump, transaction dump, the biggy a core dump, which sometimes could be three feet deep, and once you get the dump you have to know how to walk a storage chain, backwards and forwards if read dump doing that you don't know how to debug your code. Coders today don't even know what a dump is. Employers get what they pay for.