Who said it could never happen?!
Our story starts back in March this year when Novell released SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) 11. Because of Novell’s alliance with Microsoft, this version supported the Mono runtime, which allows applications coded in C# and using the .Net Framework to run on non-Windows platforms without recompilation. Novell got into the open source Mono project by acquiring Ximian. What makes it particularly interesting is that SLE 11 runs on IBM mainframes.
Now let’s change the picture. Let’s pan across to Redmond where we see a rain-soaked figure scuttling out of the nocturnal storm into a brightly-lit building. Elsewhere in the same building, the much-heralded Windows 7 is being promoted ahead of its forthcoming release. Microsoft’s current version of Windows, Vista, was less than stellar in its success in terms of take-up by large organizations. So, we watch the marketing people deciding that a nominalized version of Windows is not going to sell well, and an acronymed version – remember XP and ME – seems like a retrograde step, so they put all their marketing expertise together and decide to call it “7”. Remember that “7” is very lucky in Chinese culture. They smile.
The scene changes again. A slow dissolve to an IBM presentation, where much is being made of System z’s virtualization capabilities. How it has a long and proud history and is just head-and-shoulders above any other virtualization software on any other platform. A tracking shot shows heads nodding in agreement amongst the well-informed audience.
But now, trying hard to ignore the man behind the curtain, we find an unlikely group of friends who want to consolidate their hardware assets. They know the world and his wife use laptops for their daily computing needs, and they want the same virtualization benefits mainframers enjoy to be available to them. Can the wizard help?
An out-of-focus close-up zooms out to reveal Mantissa’s z/Vos. I’ve mentioned this product about six months ago when it was announced. The software runs in z/VM and allows mainframers to run other operating systems under it including Windows.
Let’s cut away to our eager smiling heroes, who now realise that z/Vos, once properly available, offers them a way to run Windows on a mainframe, and SLE 11 Mono Extension gives them a way to run Windows .Net applications on a mainframe, although how easy that will be I’m not quite sure. It seems the big and little ends of computing have finally come together.
Fade to black.
And just to change the tone of things, here’s a haiku:
I Googled myself
and worryingly found that
again I’m not there.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Young mainframers
“Young mainframers” – now there’s two words you probably didn’t expect to see in the same sentence, unless you were reading something written more than twenty years ago! But this week, I met some of the new breed of young mainframe enthusiasts who are in their twenties.
CA – a company that needs no introduction, I’m sure – took a mixed bag of journalists and analysts to Prague this week to talk about a recent survey they had conducted and to introduce us to a scheme they have set up with universities to explain to youngster what a mainframe is and why it is so important.
Let’s take a quick look at the survey first. It was conducted by Vanson Bourne, and surveyed organizations in six European countries. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s called “The Mainframe: Surviving and Thriving in a Turbulent World” and can be found at http://www.ca.com/Files/SupportingPieces/ca_mainframe_survey_report_208226.pdf.
They came to four conclusions:
1 Organisations, using the mainframe as a fully connected resource within the distributed Web-enabled enterprise, experience significantly greater benefits than those with a disconnected comparatively-isolated mainframe environment.
2 Where the mainframe is a fully-connected resource, 65% of all respondents reported it to be an ‘incredibly secure environment’; 63% stated that performance levels are ‘excellent’; and 52% said that ‘the system never goes down’.
3 The more the mainframe is part of an enterprise-wide technology strategy, the greater the role it plays and the greater its level of utilization: the average amount of business-critical data administered by the mainframe among all ‘connected’ respondents is 64%.
4 66% agreed that the mainframe user will soon start to suffer from a shrinking workforce if the relevant skills are not available. However, 52% agreed that a Web-enabled GUI that less-experienced users could easily master would make the mainframe more attractive and help to close the skills gap.
So clearly, Web-connected mainframes are a positive business strategy for organizations. The big problem that many face is a skills issue. All those youngsters who got into mainframe computing in the seventies and eighties are getting on a bit. They may have vast amounts of experience, but many are more concerned about their retirement than anything else! IBM has an academic initiative to ensure youngster realize that there’s more to computing than Java. It, along with other software vendors, has introduced autonomic software – self repairing – and has made the interface to their software much easier to use. Excitingly, CA has also thrown its great weight into the battle for the hearts and minds of youngsters.
CA now has links with universities, giving them access to software and hardware, which the students can use for parts of their degree, masters, or PhD studies. There are then jobs available for suitable students. And suitability doesn’t mean any great knowledge of mainframes, but a willingness to learn how they work. CA then runs internal training to get these youngster – who come from all over the world, not just the Czech Republic – up to speed. They also use a mentoring system where, shall we say, more mature mainframe software experts can pass on their knowledge to the youngsters. CA has also simplified the user interface to its software. I have spoken to the next generation of mainframers, and it’s clear that they are determined, enthusiastic, and clearly very bright. Sites running mainframes can feel more relaxed about where their future software is coming from.
With IBM and CA working so successfully with younger people, it would be interesting to see what larger software houses, perhaps BMC and Progress Software, are doing.
CA – a company that needs no introduction, I’m sure – took a mixed bag of journalists and analysts to Prague this week to talk about a recent survey they had conducted and to introduce us to a scheme they have set up with universities to explain to youngster what a mainframe is and why it is so important.
Let’s take a quick look at the survey first. It was conducted by Vanson Bourne, and surveyed organizations in six European countries. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s called “The Mainframe: Surviving and Thriving in a Turbulent World” and can be found at http://www.ca.com/Files/SupportingPieces/ca_mainframe_survey_report_208226.pdf.
They came to four conclusions:
1 Organisations, using the mainframe as a fully connected resource within the distributed Web-enabled enterprise, experience significantly greater benefits than those with a disconnected comparatively-isolated mainframe environment.
2 Where the mainframe is a fully-connected resource, 65% of all respondents reported it to be an ‘incredibly secure environment’; 63% stated that performance levels are ‘excellent’; and 52% said that ‘the system never goes down’.
3 The more the mainframe is part of an enterprise-wide technology strategy, the greater the role it plays and the greater its level of utilization: the average amount of business-critical data administered by the mainframe among all ‘connected’ respondents is 64%.
4 66% agreed that the mainframe user will soon start to suffer from a shrinking workforce if the relevant skills are not available. However, 52% agreed that a Web-enabled GUI that less-experienced users could easily master would make the mainframe more attractive and help to close the skills gap.
So clearly, Web-connected mainframes are a positive business strategy for organizations. The big problem that many face is a skills issue. All those youngsters who got into mainframe computing in the seventies and eighties are getting on a bit. They may have vast amounts of experience, but many are more concerned about their retirement than anything else! IBM has an academic initiative to ensure youngster realize that there’s more to computing than Java. It, along with other software vendors, has introduced autonomic software – self repairing – and has made the interface to their software much easier to use. Excitingly, CA has also thrown its great weight into the battle for the hearts and minds of youngsters.
CA now has links with universities, giving them access to software and hardware, which the students can use for parts of their degree, masters, or PhD studies. There are then jobs available for suitable students. And suitability doesn’t mean any great knowledge of mainframes, but a willingness to learn how they work. CA then runs internal training to get these youngster – who come from all over the world, not just the Czech Republic – up to speed. They also use a mentoring system where, shall we say, more mature mainframe software experts can pass on their knowledge to the youngsters. CA has also simplified the user interface to its software. I have spoken to the next generation of mainframers, and it’s clear that they are determined, enthusiastic, and clearly very bright. Sites running mainframes can feel more relaxed about where their future software is coming from.
With IBM and CA working so successfully with younger people, it would be interesting to see what larger software houses, perhaps BMC and Progress Software, are doing.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Exploitation – good or bad?
If I read about the exploits of James Bond or Batman, or some other fictional hero, then I am usually amused and entertained by what I read. If I hear about the exploits of a politician, I am, perhaps, less enthralled – wondering what devious deeds have occurred. So the noun, “exploits”, carries a slightly more positive mixed message. But what about the words exploitation?
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation) informs us that the term “exploitation” has two distinct meanings:
1 The act of using something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
2 The act of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.
So if the word has two meaning, what sort of problems are we, the mainframing public, going to have when we read two different opinions about a piece of software that exploits a piece of hardware? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Yet again, I’m talking about that software bombshell called zPrime from NEON Enterprise Software. Those of you who know exactly what the software does, look away now! For everyone else, here’s a very brief overview. IBM builds mainframes and charges users by how much processing they do using the General Purpose Processor. In addition, IBM has specialty processors, which can be used for Linux, DB2, and Java. These are paid for, but then users save each month because they are not processing these applications using the GPPs. So, IBM gets its regular income from CICS, IMS, batch, TSO/ISPF, etc, etc, which do use GPPs. But what if, you could run CICS, etc in a specialty processor? Wouldn’t that save lots of dosh each month? That’s what NEON must have thought because that’s exactly what their zPrime software allows to happen. Ordinary mainframers save money – even after paying NEON for the software – but IBM loses anticipated revenue. Mainframes become more affordable, but still IBM loses revenue. What happens next?
I think that IBM is in a very difficult position with this. Obviously they can do sabre rattling about breaking licence agreements with current customers, and try to maintain the flow of revenue each month, but, if the price of running a mainframe was significantly lower, wouldn’t that attract more people to buy mainframes? Those mid-sized companies that are wresting with virtualizing their servers and solving problems that mainframers take for granted as being standard practice, might well view a mainframe as a very competitively-priced opportunity. IBM must look to the future and see this as an opportunity. And I wonder whether this is contributing to their kind of half-hearted response.
Admittedly, IBM has other considerations. For example, the more it blusters against zPrime, the more oxygen of publicity it gives it – and, as a consequence, the more sites that are likely to try it. Also, if IBM were to somehow ban the use of zPrime on its computers, that could lead to a lengthy court case. So, at the moment, IBM is simply telling customers to check their contracts to ensure they’re not breaking them by using zPrime. This seems little more than a non-specific scare tactic. After all, no contracts were written with zPrime even dreamed about. People signing new contracts might want their legal teams to check whether there’s anything in it about zPrime, but I haven’t heard of such sentences being included.
If you want my advice, and you didn’t ask, I’d get on the phone to NEON and get them to try it at my site. For NEON, exploiting specialty processors is a good thing. For IBM it isn’t. That’s their two different views of exploitation of specialty processors.
As a tailpiece of advice – while I’m in the mood – if I ran IBM, I’d be looking to buy NEON about now.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation) informs us that the term “exploitation” has two distinct meanings:
1 The act of using something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
2 The act of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.
So if the word has two meaning, what sort of problems are we, the mainframing public, going to have when we read two different opinions about a piece of software that exploits a piece of hardware? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Yet again, I’m talking about that software bombshell called zPrime from NEON Enterprise Software. Those of you who know exactly what the software does, look away now! For everyone else, here’s a very brief overview. IBM builds mainframes and charges users by how much processing they do using the General Purpose Processor. In addition, IBM has specialty processors, which can be used for Linux, DB2, and Java. These are paid for, but then users save each month because they are not processing these applications using the GPPs. So, IBM gets its regular income from CICS, IMS, batch, TSO/ISPF, etc, etc, which do use GPPs. But what if, you could run CICS, etc in a specialty processor? Wouldn’t that save lots of dosh each month? That’s what NEON must have thought because that’s exactly what their zPrime software allows to happen. Ordinary mainframers save money – even after paying NEON for the software – but IBM loses anticipated revenue. Mainframes become more affordable, but still IBM loses revenue. What happens next?
I think that IBM is in a very difficult position with this. Obviously they can do sabre rattling about breaking licence agreements with current customers, and try to maintain the flow of revenue each month, but, if the price of running a mainframe was significantly lower, wouldn’t that attract more people to buy mainframes? Those mid-sized companies that are wresting with virtualizing their servers and solving problems that mainframers take for granted as being standard practice, might well view a mainframe as a very competitively-priced opportunity. IBM must look to the future and see this as an opportunity. And I wonder whether this is contributing to their kind of half-hearted response.
Admittedly, IBM has other considerations. For example, the more it blusters against zPrime, the more oxygen of publicity it gives it – and, as a consequence, the more sites that are likely to try it. Also, if IBM were to somehow ban the use of zPrime on its computers, that could lead to a lengthy court case. So, at the moment, IBM is simply telling customers to check their contracts to ensure they’re not breaking them by using zPrime. This seems little more than a non-specific scare tactic. After all, no contracts were written with zPrime even dreamed about. People signing new contracts might want their legal teams to check whether there’s anything in it about zPrime, but I haven’t heard of such sentences being included.
If you want my advice, and you didn’t ask, I’d get on the phone to NEON and get them to try it at my site. For NEON, exploiting specialty processors is a good thing. For IBM it isn’t. That’s their two different views of exploitation of specialty processors.
As a tailpiece of advice – while I’m in the mood – if I ran IBM, I’d be looking to buy NEON about now.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Trust, bad debts, and the economy as a whole
My whole business strategy is based on trust. Software and hardware vendors trust that when I sign a non-disclosure agreement, I won’t reveal their secrets ahead of the scheduled launch day. Companies that send me review units of hardware and software trust that I will actually review the unit and publish the review. And if organizations ask me to write something for them, I trust that they will pay me for it.
And this usually works very well. I’ve never published an article about a product that hasn’t been formally announced. And I’ve always written and published (somewhere) reviews of hardware and software I’ve been sent.
It’s the other side of the trust equation that has, from time to time, been a problem in varying degrees. For example, one company that advertised on the Virtual IMS Connection Web site (www.virtualims.com), which my company looks after, were sometimes a bit slow to pay their monthly invoice.
Technical Support magazine got further and further behind with payments for articles a few years ago until they eventually stopped publishing. The good news – for me and other contributors – is that they eventually paid all their outstanding debts. So well done to them, our trust was eventually rewarded.
On the whole, organizations that have asked me to write articles or internal documentation for them have been very good at paying at the agreed time. Similarly with the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook (www.arcati.com), sponsors and advertisers have been generally good at paying on time. Our trust relationship worked. But being a smaller company, iTech-Ed (www.itech-ed.com) needs to receive payments when promised because it has commitments to other companies that have got to be met. If company A withholds a payment to company B, then company B either has to withhold payments to company C or incur bank charges for a temporary overdraft. And finally, somewhere along the line in these days of credit crunch, someone is going to owe the bank so much that they’ll cease trading altogether.
I wrote a short article for a company a few years ago. Shortly after I sent the article, the company disappeared! Its Web presence was gone and no e-mails were ever replied to. It was the first (and last) time that I ever wrote for that organization and I lost an afternoon’s work. The trust relationship was completely broken.
More worrying for me, is when an article I have written at an agreed price has been published on the Internet, but the commissioning organization don’t pay at the agreed time and then stop replying to e-mails! I’m perfectly happy for quotes from my blogs or other articles to be quoted by other bloggers or article writers. That’s great – and it happens all the time. What I’m irritated about is companies that agree a price, commission an article, publish it, and then don’t pay. No matter how much the article costs, it’s cash flow for smaller companies that keeps the economy going – and that thing called trust.
I wrote an article entitled “Which browser is best for me” for Sift Media back in April. It’s now September and they still haven’t paid up. Perhaps, you’re thinking, that they didn’t publish it. Well, you can find it at http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/item/196884 and you can find a reference to it at http://www.simplyraydeen.com/faq/96-browsers/131-which-is-the-best-browser-for-me. It’s also apparently mentioned at http://www.infotechaccountants.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18036 and http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/04/editors-note-looking-at-budget.html and http://phentermineonline.to.pl/news/Which-is-the-best-browser-for-me,128756.html.
Which all seems like Accounting Web, which is owned by Sift Media, got good mileage out of my work.
The point I want to make – to large and small companies alike – is pay your bills on time. Putting someone on 90 days or more before you pay, puts the whole economy at risk simply because small amounts of money moving rapidly from one organization to another can lead to larger amounts changing hands, and soon the economy is back on its feet and we are all benefiting. One slow payer or one bad debt puts a spanner in the works for everyone! And, of course, breaks any trust that exists between two companies.
And this usually works very well. I’ve never published an article about a product that hasn’t been formally announced. And I’ve always written and published (somewhere) reviews of hardware and software I’ve been sent.
It’s the other side of the trust equation that has, from time to time, been a problem in varying degrees. For example, one company that advertised on the Virtual IMS Connection Web site (www.virtualims.com), which my company looks after, were sometimes a bit slow to pay their monthly invoice.
Technical Support magazine got further and further behind with payments for articles a few years ago until they eventually stopped publishing. The good news – for me and other contributors – is that they eventually paid all their outstanding debts. So well done to them, our trust was eventually rewarded.
On the whole, organizations that have asked me to write articles or internal documentation for them have been very good at paying at the agreed time. Similarly with the Arcati Mainframe Yearbook (www.arcati.com), sponsors and advertisers have been generally good at paying on time. Our trust relationship worked. But being a smaller company, iTech-Ed (www.itech-ed.com) needs to receive payments when promised because it has commitments to other companies that have got to be met. If company A withholds a payment to company B, then company B either has to withhold payments to company C or incur bank charges for a temporary overdraft. And finally, somewhere along the line in these days of credit crunch, someone is going to owe the bank so much that they’ll cease trading altogether.
I wrote a short article for a company a few years ago. Shortly after I sent the article, the company disappeared! Its Web presence was gone and no e-mails were ever replied to. It was the first (and last) time that I ever wrote for that organization and I lost an afternoon’s work. The trust relationship was completely broken.
More worrying for me, is when an article I have written at an agreed price has been published on the Internet, but the commissioning organization don’t pay at the agreed time and then stop replying to e-mails! I’m perfectly happy for quotes from my blogs or other articles to be quoted by other bloggers or article writers. That’s great – and it happens all the time. What I’m irritated about is companies that agree a price, commission an article, publish it, and then don’t pay. No matter how much the article costs, it’s cash flow for smaller companies that keeps the economy going – and that thing called trust.
I wrote an article entitled “Which browser is best for me” for Sift Media back in April. It’s now September and they still haven’t paid up. Perhaps, you’re thinking, that they didn’t publish it. Well, you can find it at http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/item/196884 and you can find a reference to it at http://www.simplyraydeen.com/faq/96-browsers/131-which-is-the-best-browser-for-me. It’s also apparently mentioned at http://www.infotechaccountants.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18036 and http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2009/04/editors-note-looking-at-budget.html and http://phentermineonline.to.pl/news/Which-is-the-best-browser-for-me,128756.html.
Which all seems like Accounting Web, which is owned by Sift Media, got good mileage out of my work.
The point I want to make – to large and small companies alike – is pay your bills on time. Putting someone on 90 days or more before you pay, puts the whole economy at risk simply because small amounts of money moving rapidly from one organization to another can lead to larger amounts changing hands, and soon the economy is back on its feet and we are all benefiting. One slow payer or one bad debt puts a spanner in the works for everyone! And, of course, breaks any trust that exists between two companies.
Monday, 24 August 2009
CA Eclipsed
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(software)) Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an IDE and a plug-in system to extend it. It is written primarily in Java and can be used to develop applications in Java and, by means of the various plug-ins, in other languages as well, including C, C++, COBOL, Python, Perl, PHP, and others.
Eclipse started life as an IBM Canada project. It was developed by Object Technology International (OTI) as a Java-based replacement for the Smalltalk-based VisualAge family of IDE products. The Eclipse Foundation was created in January 2004. IBM’s Chief Technology Officer Lee Nackman claims that the name “Eclipse” was chosen to target Microsoft’s Visual Studio product.
Eclipse was originally meant for Java developers, but through the use of plug-ins to the small run-time kernel, other languages can be used. And there are Eclipse widgets.
And now CA has got in on the act. CA InterTest Batch and CA InterTest for CICS, now feature a Graphical User Interface based on the Eclipse Platform, which they claim makes it easier for new and experienced mainframers to execute core testing, and debugging tasks. The press release adds that these tasks historically have been time-consuming phases of the mainframe application development and deployment life-cycle.
What CA is claiming is that the new CA InterTest GUI helps developers re-use and re-purpose existing mainframe application code in order to further improve productivity and support Service Oriented Architecture implementations. It says that by plugging CA InterTest tools into their larger Eclipse-based integrated development environments, customers can more easily and seamlessly debug end-to-end composite applications that include mainframe, distributed, Web, and/or mobile components.
IBM has been making a big thing of Eclipse for a long time – well it would I suppose as it had a hand in its development. Its Rational mainframe tools integrate with Eclipse.
Also, Compuware announced a new version of its analysis and debugging tool last week, Xpediter/Eclipse 2.0. The company said that Compuware Xpediter helps the next generation of developers analyse applications and quickly understand the business processes and data flows in those applications, avoiding an unnecessarily steep learning curve. Xpediter/Eclipse 2.0 also helps these new developers become productive quicker by moving away from the traditional “green screen” interface and providing a modernized point-and-click environment, to which these new employees are accustomed.
This announcement more clearly points to the thinking behind these product updates – and that is that mainframers are getting old, so in order to keep the machines functioning there needs to be a way for younger people to become productive very quickly without learning the arcane ways of the machine – and Eclipse provides such an environment for them to work in. Watch out for more Eclipse-related announcements.
Eclipse started life as an IBM Canada project. It was developed by Object Technology International (OTI) as a Java-based replacement for the Smalltalk-based VisualAge family of IDE products. The Eclipse Foundation was created in January 2004. IBM’s Chief Technology Officer Lee Nackman claims that the name “Eclipse” was chosen to target Microsoft’s Visual Studio product.
Eclipse was originally meant for Java developers, but through the use of plug-ins to the small run-time kernel, other languages can be used. And there are Eclipse widgets.
And now CA has got in on the act. CA InterTest Batch and CA InterTest for CICS, now feature a Graphical User Interface based on the Eclipse Platform, which they claim makes it easier for new and experienced mainframers to execute core testing, and debugging tasks. The press release adds that these tasks historically have been time-consuming phases of the mainframe application development and deployment life-cycle.
What CA is claiming is that the new CA InterTest GUI helps developers re-use and re-purpose existing mainframe application code in order to further improve productivity and support Service Oriented Architecture implementations. It says that by plugging CA InterTest tools into their larger Eclipse-based integrated development environments, customers can more easily and seamlessly debug end-to-end composite applications that include mainframe, distributed, Web, and/or mobile components.
IBM has been making a big thing of Eclipse for a long time – well it would I suppose as it had a hand in its development. Its Rational mainframe tools integrate with Eclipse.
Also, Compuware announced a new version of its analysis and debugging tool last week, Xpediter/Eclipse 2.0. The company said that Compuware Xpediter helps the next generation of developers analyse applications and quickly understand the business processes and data flows in those applications, avoiding an unnecessarily steep learning curve. Xpediter/Eclipse 2.0 also helps these new developers become productive quicker by moving away from the traditional “green screen” interface and providing a modernized point-and-click environment, to which these new employees are accustomed.
This announcement more clearly points to the thinking behind these product updates – and that is that mainframers are getting old, so in order to keep the machines functioning there needs to be a way for younger people to become productive very quickly without learning the arcane ways of the machine – and Eclipse provides such an environment for them to work in. Watch out for more Eclipse-related announcements.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
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:
The two Universal drivers for JDBC – IMS Universal DB Resource Adapter and IMS Universal JDBC Driver – offer a greatly-enhanced JDBC implementation including:
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.
- 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.
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.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
How old is old?
Picking up on my blog of a couple of weeks ago about COBOL reaching 50 this year, I thought it might be interesting to see just how old some of the technology we know and love actually is.
For example, CICS – the Customer Information Control System – has been around since 1969. Although we tend to associate CICS with IBM Hursley these days, it was originally developed at Des Planes in the USA and was called PU-CICS, with the PU bit standing for Public Utility. In the early 1970s, development was at Palo Alto, but moved to Hursley in 1974.
IMS – Information Management System – is even older, having first appeared in 1968. IMS was developed for the space race and contributed to the success of the Apollo program. It’s said, but no-one knows outside of IBM, that IMS is IBM's highest revenue software product. If you’re not already aware, I organize the Virtual IMS Connection user group at www.virtualims.com. It’s free to join and you get six free Webinars a year and six free user group newsletters. But I digress.
Batch processing goes right back to the very early days of computing in the 1950s.
TSO, or Time Sharing Option, first appeared in the early 1960s. Originally, and there’s a clue in its name, it was an optional extra on OS/MVT (Operating System/ Multiprogramming with a Variable number of Tasks), a precursor to MVS. TSO became a standard feature with the release of MVS in 1974. ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility), which is associated with TSO, didn’t appear until the 1980s.
DB2 – database 2 – first appeared in 1983. DB2 is a relational database, and as well as on mainframes, turns up on PCs and other IBM platforms. It competes with Oracle and Microsoft’s SQL Server products on these other platforms. Oracle appeared in 1979.
Mainframes themselves were developed during the 1950s.
The World Wide Web is meant to have come into existence in 1991 – thanks to the work of Tim Berners Lee.
IBM came into existence in 1924, when a company called CTR changed its name to IBM. It had been trading as IBM in Canada since 1917.
Microsoft was founded in 1978 – but enough about them.
Citrix was founded in 1989 by Ed Iacobucci and others who’d worked on the ill-fated OS/2 project at IBM.
COBOL’s 50. Java was first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. It was based on the work of James Gosling. The language was initially called Oak. The international standard for C++ came in 1998.
It’s interesting looking back and realizing just what a significant effect these golden oldie technologies have had, and how they will continue to thrive into the foreseeable future.
For example, CICS – the Customer Information Control System – has been around since 1969. Although we tend to associate CICS with IBM Hursley these days, it was originally developed at Des Planes in the USA and was called PU-CICS, with the PU bit standing for Public Utility. In the early 1970s, development was at Palo Alto, but moved to Hursley in 1974.
IMS – Information Management System – is even older, having first appeared in 1968. IMS was developed for the space race and contributed to the success of the Apollo program. It’s said, but no-one knows outside of IBM, that IMS is IBM's highest revenue software product. If you’re not already aware, I organize the Virtual IMS Connection user group at www.virtualims.com. It’s free to join and you get six free Webinars a year and six free user group newsletters. But I digress.
Batch processing goes right back to the very early days of computing in the 1950s.
TSO, or Time Sharing Option, first appeared in the early 1960s. Originally, and there’s a clue in its name, it was an optional extra on OS/MVT (Operating System/ Multiprogramming with a Variable number of Tasks), a precursor to MVS. TSO became a standard feature with the release of MVS in 1974. ISPF (Interactive System Productivity Facility), which is associated with TSO, didn’t appear until the 1980s.
DB2 – database 2 – first appeared in 1983. DB2 is a relational database, and as well as on mainframes, turns up on PCs and other IBM platforms. It competes with Oracle and Microsoft’s SQL Server products on these other platforms. Oracle appeared in 1979.
Mainframes themselves were developed during the 1950s.
The World Wide Web is meant to have come into existence in 1991 – thanks to the work of Tim Berners Lee.
IBM came into existence in 1924, when a company called CTR changed its name to IBM. It had been trading as IBM in Canada since 1917.
Microsoft was founded in 1978 – but enough about them.
Citrix was founded in 1989 by Ed Iacobucci and others who’d worked on the ill-fated OS/2 project at IBM.
COBOL’s 50. Java was first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. It was based on the work of James Gosling. The language was initially called Oak. The international standard for C++ came in 1998.
It’s interesting looking back and realizing just what a significant effect these golden oldie technologies have had, and how they will continue to thrive into the foreseeable future.
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