Minutes of the GSE UK IMS Working Group Meeting Warwick, 15^th March 2001

Chairman: Frank Fleming (frank.fleming @ barclays.co.uk) - 01565-613581

(Acting) Secretary: John Boyle (john_boyle @ bmc.com) - 0831 400154

Web Site: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/dougie.lawson/gse/

Administration

Introduction
- Frank announced that just after our last meeting, Ian Waldron (IBM UK) had died. Ian had been a contributor to the UK IMS working group in the past. Frank had represented the group at Ian's funeral, and a donation of £100 had been sent to the Christie Cancer Charity, in lieu of flowers.
  In the absence of any other volunteer to take over the post of Secretary recently vacated by Peter Armstrong, John Boyle (BMC Software) has been appointed. Printed copies of some of the presentations were distributed at the meeting. If anyone wants to receive a copy of any of the presentations please email working group chairman - Frank Fleming.
  Frank handed out the usual welcome pack, including agenda, list of attendees, problems / contacts form and a feedback form. In addition the welcome pack also included an updated statement of the objectives of the UK IMS Working Group.
- Apologies: Niel Kenyon - IBM Rep.
- The registration form was passed round with a request to update details, especially email ids. Now that we are doing things by email, you can have as many people as you like on the distribution list, which saves you having to pass on the minutes / agenda etc.
Minutes
- The minutes of the last meeting had been circulated by email. These were agreed and there were no matters were arising.
Correspondence
- Frank had received the following items Minutes of the last GSE Large Systems Working Group Meeting
  Notice of GSE Europe Annual Conference,
  Latest GSE Europe Newsletter
  Notice of IBM Tech Conference in Prague April 23 to April 27. This is a joint conference covering IBM Z Series Hardware and z/OS, and Storage Management.

Future Meetings

Details of meetings planned for the rest of the year were distributed. The Joint IMS/DB2/CICS/MQ meeting provisionally planned for May has been postponed, due to clashes with other events at the end of May.

Revised Schedule is as follows

Thursday June 14th London Venue to be decided

Thursday September 29th Edinburgh Standard Life Office

Wednesday/Thursday December 6th/7th Two day joint meeting with DB2 and CICS Working Groups Proposed Venue - Hale Barns (Manchester)

IBM What's New - Pete Sadler and Alan Cooper, IBM

IBM's UK Education Centre is now located in Farnborough, Hampshire.
New courses
- CM70U - 3 days IMS V7 Update. Scheduled for March 21 to March 23. There will be another course later in the year - possibly October. The course will also be available at IBM's Education Centre in Montpellier.
Other Mainstream IMS Courses - see IBM UK Education web site.
- Courses available on request - Typically run at customer site. Contact Alan Cooper (alan_cooper@uk.ibm.com) or Pete Sadler (pete_sadler@uk.ibm.com) if interested.
  - CA42 ETO
  - CM41 Fast Path
  - CM50 Block Level Sharing
  - CM51 RSR (Remote Site Recovery)
  - CM56 APPC/IMS Implementation
- In addition to education offered in the UK, there are a number of PSSC courses available which may be of interest, including
  - IMA61F - IMS Data and Message Queue Sharing Workshop.
  - IMA65F - IMS Connectivity and WEB Enablement.
  - IMA70F - IMS V7 Product Enhancements
  These courses are offered in Montpellier, France and further details can be found on the French Section of the IBM Learning Services Web Site. (Course description etc. is in English!)
Other Events
- IMS Tech Conference 22nd -25th October Miami
Alan provided a high level overview of the following new tools/versions from IBM
- IMS Command Control Facility (CCF) - New tool
- Database Control Suite - New Version - 2.1
- High Performance SYSGEN Tools - New Tool
- IMS Message Format Services (MFS) Reversal Utilities - New Tool
- Online Recovery Services - New (separately chargeable) IMS Feature
- Fast Path Online Tools - new Version - 2.0
- IMS DB Repair Facility - Replaces DBT VSAM Zapper
- IMS High Performance Pointer Checker - PTF to introduce new function
- IMS Image Copy Extensions - Product Enhancement APAR
In addition, he announced that APAR PQ42127 allows IMS to exploit storage above the 2GB 'bar' for OSAM and LOG buffers.
Product withdrawal
- IMS Version 5 - Withdrawal of Support - 30th September 2001

IMS Queue Control Facility - Alan Cooper, IBM

Alan provided an overview of IBM's IMS Queue Control Facility. This product replaces IBM's Message Requeuer (MRQ) product. It supports both Shared and non-shared Queue environments, in IMS V5, V6, and V7. Product Highlights:-
- Management of Message Queues including protection against abends caused by Queues filling.
- Provides own version of DFSQSPC0 exit.
- Can take action against an application which is threatening to fill the IMS Message Queue by putting the application into a wait, or returning an IMS Status Code.
- Requeue of messages after Cold Start or Application error.
- ISPF interface providing the ability to Query and View queued messages.
- Capability to move messages between IMS Systems.
- Replay of messages for regression testing - including pacing to control rate that messages are delivered to IMS message queues for processing. Restrictions in current release:-
- Fast Path Expedited Message Handling (EMH)
- Conversational Transactions

Java Access to IMS - Ken Blackman - IBM Dallas Systems Centre

Ken gave an interesting and enlightening presentation on IMS is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century with Java (is it an acronym or a brand of coffee?) taking its place along side PL/I (Programming Language 1), and COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language), in the list of high level programming languages which provide access to IMS data. The presentation covered the following topics:-
- IMS Connect - which has replaced the IMSTOC. This provides a TCP/IP Listener program.
- IMS Client for Java - Sample client, downloadable from the web, which provides the ability to generate a quick test application to communicate with IMS Connect.
- IMS Connector for Java - Part of Visual Age for Java - can read COBOL source and produce Java Beans and Java Servlets, which can be executed in Websphere Application Server.
- IMS Java - New for IMS V7 - Allows you to write, and compile, a Java Program which runs in an IMS MPP region, and accesses IMS databases using SQL like statements.

Hints & Tips, Problems and Contacts

Name:Dougie Lawson from IBM (dougie_Lawson@uk.ibm.com)
Problem:GSAM File Allocation
Contacts/Comments:Dougie has an ISPF panel driven REXX EXEC which will handle re-allocation of GSAM files. This was provided by Norbert Berreßem from GRZ LEHRTE . They can be downloaded from the UK IMS Working Group Web Site, hints and tips page - http://web.ukonline.co.uk/dougie.lawson/gse_files/sb37.pan http://web.ukonline.co.uk/dougie.lawson/gse_files/sx37.cl

Requirements

Name:Lance Hall from Tesco Stores (Lance.Hall@Uk.Tesco.com)
Problem:Would like an option to allow the status of IMS elements (e.g. Databases, Programs, Transactions) to be preserved across a Cold Start. This would be useful when for example a database had been /DBR'd prior to an IMS shutdown for a scheduled Cold Start. There are situations where you would not want the database to be started by the IMS restart. It was noted that CICS provided two 'levels' of Cold Start, one of which preserved element status across cold start.
Comments:There appeared to be support for this as a requirement. Lance will work with Neil Price to formalise it for voting at the next meeting.

LUNCH

IMS V6 and V7 Maintenance recommendations - John Butterweck - IBM Silicon Valley Lab

John's presentation provided a series of recommendations for maintaining your IMS V6 and V7 system, and highlighted a number of common issues encountered by users. His recommendations included:-
- Initial production system base implementation should be within 6 months of current and should include HIPER PTFs and fixes for PE's PTFs three months behind planned migration date.
- Three month test cycle prior to production implementation.
- Continually review PSP bucket UPGRADE for IMS release level.
- Use Enhanced HOLDDATA to identify exposure to HIPERs and PE PTFs
- See info APAR II08928 for info on use of ACCEPT BYPASS(APPLYCHECK)
- Be aware that IMS V7 conforms to the OS390 naming standard for Dataset names/DDNAMEs, so all Distribution Lib DDNAMEs now start ADFS, and Target Lib DDNAMEs start SDFS
John gave a general recommendation to make full use of the IBM Support Centre to resolve any installation and maintenance issues that are encountered.

Round Table Discussion

To take further advantage of having two visitors from IBM's Silicon Valley Lab, a 'free for all' question and answer session rounded off the afternoon. Alan Cooper and Pete Sadler assisted by joining 'The Panel'. The following summary covers the main points discussed. Apologies for any omissions or errors - there were a lot of people talking at once!

Question What is the future of the 3270 device as a means of accessing IMS? Response Although there are now other ways to get at IMS, the 3270 - whether in the form of the physical device, or emulated using PC software, will continue to be supported by IMS for some time to come - certainly for 5 years.

QuestionWill IMS need z/OS in the future? This was prompted by a suggestion that DB2 Version 8 would only operate in 64-bit mode. Response Yes - at some point in the future IMS will require z/OS, but no information available as to when. IMS 7.1 requires OS/390 2.6.

Question Are the IMS V7 SVCs downward compatible? This would simplify things when running several IMS releases in the same MVS Image. Response YES - certainly for Supported releases. Not guaranteed for unsupported releases. For Version 5 onwards, use DFSUSVC0 to dynamically upgrade the Type 2 SVC 'on the fly'.

Question Does anyone know where to source PC keyboards which include the 3270 style PFKEY block of keys to the right hand side of the keyboard? Response We drew a blank on this. Some emulators allow remapping of the numeric keypad on the standard PC keyboard, but there aren't 12 keys in a 3*4 block

Question Anyone got a simple method to download the DDEFs for the SMPE GLOBAL Zone? Response No one was able to help with this. Suggestion to raise this as an SMPE requirement via the Large Systems Working Group.

Question Any advice on upgrading from IMS V5 to IMS V7? This one came in by email from Ciara Drain at AIB Group - (ciara.m.drain@aib.ie) Response No one in the UK has done this. A couple of participants in the IMS V7 QPP did, and a write up could be obtained from Alison Coughtrie at IBM. Other suggestion was to request information via IBM Support Centre. Since AIB are Fastpath Users, they need to be aware of the very significant changes introduced by IMS Version 6.

Question Any way to avoid re-entering values on the IVP dialogue when upgrading to a new IMS release, or to review values specified for previous release? Response This is something that the DB2 does allow. Best suggestion was to raise as a requirement. Customer requirement MR0327014629 has now been raised for this.

Question There was a suggestion in John Butterweck's presentation on IMS Maintenance, that the ideal setup would be to have a separate Target Zone for each IMS system. Whilst this is OK with 3 or 4 IMS Systems, it is not practical with 20 or even 50 Response A number of alternative approaches we discussed. It was agreed that this would be a suitable topic for a presentation at a future meeting.

Question Why is IMS Connect a chargeable feature when the equivalent function is included in the base code for CICS / Transaction Server ? Response IMS TCP/IP OTMA Connector (ITOC) was available at no charge, but some customers were not happy about having production applications which were dependent on 'freeware'.

Question Anyone using IBM's Hardware Compression Extended Tool ? (Question from IBM Global Services / Royal Sun Alliance) Response Contact Pete Sadler at IBM.

AOB

None

Meeting feedback

Topic Comments Score

IBM - What's New? Good to know.
Shouldn't this section be limited to base IMS product rather than including the complete tools range? Alternatively, can 3rd party vendors also have a regular 'Whats New" slot? 4.04

IMS Queue Control Facility The inclusion of some ISPF screen displays was very useful.
Very powerful tool.
Good.
Not relevant to DBCTL only installation.
Only gave a '3' because we have no plans for it.
3.68

Java Access to IMS We might want to utilise IMS connect for future developments.
Not an issue at present in our shop. Interesting none the less.
Very interesting topic.
Interesting.
Lots covered.
Large parts not relevant to DBCTL only installation. But ODBA access from WebSphere is very interesting.
Excellent and informative presentation with good slides.
We are already web enabling via a different route - but interesting anyway. 3.64

IMS Installation & Maintenance Useful info for our IMS V7 plans.
Excellent presentation. Thank you.
Good hints and tips.
Excellent - could have done with 2 hours of this.
A lot of stuff well known to sysprogs and of no interest to DBAs. However info on V7 differences was very useful.
Pretty dry for a humble DBA.
Excellent reminder session for experience sysprogs as well as beginners. 4.40

Free for All discussion Some interesting points being made.
Very interesting.
Entertaining, useful in parts. 4.14

Topic	Comments	Score
IBM - What's New?	Good to know. Shouldn't this section be limited to base IMS product rather than including the complete tools range? Alternatively, can 3rd party vendors also have a regular 'Whats New" slot?	4.04
IMS Queue Control Facility	The inclusion of some ISPF screen displays was very useful. Very powerful tool. Good. Not relevant to DBCTL only installation. Only gave a '3' because we have no plans for it.	3.68
Java Access to IMS	We might want to utilise IMS connect for future developments. Not an issue at present in our shop. Interesting none the less. Very interesting topic. Interesting. Lots covered. Large parts not relevant to DBCTL only installation. But ODBA access from WebSphere is very interesting. Excellent and informative presentation with good slides. We are already web enabling via a different route - but interesting anyway.	3.64
IMS Installation & Maintenance	Useful info for our IMS V7 plans. Excellent presentation. Thank you. Good hints and tips. Excellent - could have done with 2 hours of this. A lot of stuff well known to sysprogs and of no interest to DBAs. However info on V7 differences was very useful. Pretty dry for a humble DBA. Excellent reminder session for experience sysprogs as well as beginners.	4.40
Free for All discussion	Some interesting points being made. Very interesting. Entertaining, useful in parts.	4.14

Offers of presentations (Thank you - we will be in touch)

Tuning Tips

Requests for topics

IMS & SMP
24x7 Availability
Data Sharing Experiences
IMS Tuning
Fast Path for beginners

Thursday June 14th	London	Venue to be decided
Thursday September 29th	Edinburgh	Standard Life Office
Wednesday/Thursday	December 6th/7th	Two day joint meeting with DB2 and CICS Working Groups Proposed Venue - Hale Barns (Manchester)

Question What is the future of the 3270 device as a means of accessing IMS?	Response Although there are now other ways to get at IMS, the 3270 - whether in the form of the physical device, or emulated using PC software, will continue to be supported by IMS for some time to come - certainly for 5 years.
QuestionWill IMS need z/OS in the future? This was prompted by a suggestion that DB2 Version 8 would only operate in 64-bit mode.	Response Yes - at some point in the future IMS will require z/OS, but no information available as to when. IMS 7.1 requires OS/390 2.6.
Question Are the IMS V7 SVCs downward compatible? This would simplify things when running several IMS releases in the same MVS Image.	Response YES - certainly for Supported releases. Not guaranteed for unsupported releases. For Version 5 onwards, use DFSUSVC0 to dynamically upgrade the Type 2 SVC 'on the fly'.
Question Does anyone know where to source PC keyboards which include the 3270 style PFKEY block of keys to the right hand side of the keyboard?	Response We drew a blank on this. Some emulators allow remapping of the numeric keypad on the standard PC keyboard, but there aren't 12 keys in a 3*4 block
Question Anyone got a simple method to download the DDEFs for the SMPE GLOBAL Zone?	Response No one was able to help with this. Suggestion to raise this as an SMPE requirement via the Large Systems Working Group.
Question Any advice on upgrading from IMS V5 to IMS V7? This one came in by email from Ciara Drain at AIB Group - (ciara.m.drain@aib.ie)	Response No one in the UK has done this. A couple of participants in the IMS V7 QPP did, and a write up could be obtained from Alison Coughtrie at IBM. Other suggestion was to request information via IBM Support Centre. Since AIB are Fastpath Users, they need to be aware of the very significant changes introduced by IMS Version 6.
Question Any way to avoid re-entering values on the IVP dialogue when upgrading to a new IMS release, or to review values specified for previous release?	Response This is something that the DB2 does allow. Best suggestion was to raise as a requirement. Customer requirement MR0327014629 has now been raised for this.
Question There was a suggestion in John Butterweck's presentation on IMS Maintenance, that the ideal setup would be to have a separate Target Zone for each IMS system. Whilst this is OK with 3 or 4 IMS Systems, it is not practical with 20 or even 50	Response A number of alternative approaches we discussed. It was agreed that this would be a suitable topic for a presentation at a future meeting.
Question Why is IMS Connect a chargeable feature when the equivalent function is included in the base code for CICS / Transaction Server ?	Response IMS TCP/IP OTMA Connector (ITOC) was available at no charge, but some customers were not happy about having production applications which were dependent on 'freeware'.
Question Anyone using IBM's Hardware Compression Extended Tool ? (Question from IBM Global Services / Royal Sun Alliance)	Response Contact Pete Sadler at IBM.

Minutes of the GSE UK IMS Working Group Meeting Warwick, 15th March 2001