IMS Open Database

The latest webinar from Virtual IMS CONNECTION (www.virtualims.com) was entitled, “IMS Open DB functionality in IMS V11”, and was presented by Kevin Hite, an IMS lead tester with IBM. Kevin is a software engineer originally from Rochester, NY, who has worked in IBM for both WebSphere for z/OS and IMS. He is the test lead for IMS V11 Open Database and is the team lead for a new test area, IMS Solution Test. Solution Test is responsible for integrating new IMS function to customer-like applications in a customer-like environment.

IMS Open Database is new in V11, and Kevin informed the user group that it offers scalable, distributed, and high-speed local access to IMS database resources. The product allows business growth, and allows more flexibility in accessing IMS data to meet growth challenges, while at the same time allowing IMS databases to be processed as a standards-based data server.

What makes IMS Open Database different is its standards-based approach, using Java Connector Architecture 1.5 (Java EE), JDBC, SQL, and DRDA. It enables new application design frameworks and patterns.

One particular highlight Kevin identified with the new solution was three universal drivers. These include:

• Universal DB resource adapter
  – JCA 1.5, which provides: XA transaction support and local transaction support; connection pooling; connection sharing; and the availability of multiple programming models (JDBC, CCI with SQL interactions, and CCI with DLI interactions).
• Universal JDBC driver
• Universal DLI driver.

With distributed access:

• All Universal drivers support type 4 connectivity to IMS databases from TCP/IP-enabled platforms and runtimes, including:
  – Windows
  – zLinux
  – z/OS
  – WebSphere Application Server
  – Stand-alone Java SE
• Resource Recovery Services (RRS) is not required if applications do not require distributed two-phase commit.

For local connectivity, Kevin informed us that the Universal driver support for type 2 connectivity to IMS databases from z/OS runtimes includes WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, IMS Java dependent regions, CICS z/OS, and DB2 z/OS stored procedures.

The two Universal drivers for JDBC – IMS Universal DB Resource Adapter and IMS Universal JDBC Driver – offer a greatly-enhanced JDBC implementation including:

• JDBC 3.0
• Local commit/rollback support
• Standard SQL implementation for the SQL subset supported
  – Keys of parent segments are included in table as foreign keys, and allows standard SQL implementation
• Updatable result sets
• Metadata discovery API implementation
  – Uses metadata generated by DLIModel Utility as “catalog data”
  – Enables JDBC tooling to work with IMS DBs just as they do with DB2 DBs.

This is just a small part of a very interesting presentation and gives little more than a flavour of what IMS professionals can expect from IMS Open Database in V11 of IMS.