Minutes of the GSE UK IMS Working Group Meeting Manchester, 7^th December 2000

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 Peter Armstrong has resigned as minutes secretary, due to a change of role within BMC Software. In the absence of any other volunteers, John Boyle from BMC Software was prepared to take over the job, but if any other member of the working group would like to take it on, they should contact Frank for more details.
  • Frank made a presentation to Alan Cooper in recognition of Alan's contribution to the Working Group as IBM Rep over the past several years. Alan has been succeeded by Niel Kenyon in this role.
  • Frank introduced the current committee members, and gave the following brief summary of the Steering Committee meeting, which was held the day before :-
  • Provisional dates and venues for next Year's Meetings
    • Thursday15^th March Warwick
    • May 17/18 or 24/25 - Two day joint meeting with DB2 and CICS Working Groups. Proposed Venue - Hale Barns (Manchester).
    • Thursday 20 ^th September Edinburgh
    • Thursday 7^th December London

  • Objectives for Working Group - Frank will update these and circulate
  • Account - Bank Balance still healthy, so meeting fee will remain at £15 for next year.
  • Frank handed out an agenda, a list of attendees, problems / contacts form and a feedback form. There were 20 attendees from 11 companies.

• Apologies: AC Nielsen, AXA Insurance, Friends Provident, SEMA, EDS (Rolls Royce), 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 were agreed and no matters were arising

• Correspondence
  • none

IBM What's New - Alan Cooper, IBM

• IBM's UK Education Centre is now located in Farnborough, Hampshire.

• New courses
  • CM70 - 3 days IMS V7, plus 1 day on HALDB. Not scheduled yet, but should be running in February.
  • CM11 - 4 days IMS DB and TM Systems Programming. Schedule TBA.

• IMS/DB2 Tech Conference (Munich March 5 to 9 2001) is now sponsored by GSE. Attendees will receive a voucher that can be used as payment for GSE Membership, or GSE European Events.

• IMS V7 went GA on 27 October 2000

• IMS V5 is out of support on 30 September 2001

• Useful new Red Books
  • IMS V7 Release Guide - SG24-5753-00
  • IMS V7 HALDB - SG24-5487-00

Handouts were provided. Please email if you would like to receive a copy by email.

DB Tools II - Alan Cooper, IBM

IBM made a major announcement on September 12^th. Some completely new tools, many new versions of existing tools, with enhancements

Alan provided an overview of the complete IMS toolset, which can be divided into the following five broad categories

• IMS Database Administration
• IMS Recovery
• IMS Transaction Management
• IMS Application Management
• IMS Performance

Further details available from the following web sites

• IMS Home Page
• IBM IMS Tools
• IMS Connect

Handouts were provided. Please email if you would like to receive a copy by email

Attunity Connect - Paul Clem and Gwyn Jones, Attunity UK

Paul Clem (Sales Director) introduced the Company - Attunity Inc. and the product - Attunity Connect.

The company were known as ISG until July 2000. Product was known as ISG Navigator. Company Headquarters is in Burlington, Massachusetts USA. Most Research and Development work is done in Israel. UK Office is in Reading.

The Product is Attunity Connect. It is Data Access Middleware, providing Uniform SQL Access to any data on any platform. The product enables access to Legacy data from newly developed E-Business applications. Product technology is embedded in products supplied by Attunity partners including Oracle and Compaq.

Gwyn Jones (Technical Support Consultant) gave a technical overview of the Attunity Connect product. Main components are a Client Interface, Query Processor and Optimizer, and a collection of 'Connect Adaptors' which provide access to a wide range of database and file types, on many different hardware and software platforms. This range has recently been extended to include IMS databases. Attunity would like some UK IMS Sites to take part in an early release programme for the IMS Adaptor. Anyone interested can contact Attunity on 0118 975 3330.

Copy of handout available from Working Group Chairman - Frank.Fleming@barclays.co.uk

Hints & Tips, Problems and Contacts

• Name: Ian Tyson from IBM/ Royal Sun Alliance - tel 01403 232329.

  Problem: PQ42356 Problem with Data Propagator (DPROP), when deleting a root segment with more than 29840 dependents.

  Contacts/Comments: Job loops, creating Type X'9904' log records containing X'01'

• Name: Ian Tyson from IBM/ Royal Sun Alliance - tel 01403 232329.

  Problem: II08928 If you want to bypass APPLY in SMP/E take a look at this info APAR.

• Name: Steve Royston from Origin - tel 01543 463945.

  Problem:Anyone using NEON Web Server with IMS?

  Contacts/Comments:Dougie Lawson suggested raising question on IMS List Server

• Name:Pete Simpson from ABN AMRO Bank

  Problem:Anyone got any code which manipulates IMS Message LLZZ fields using Halfword Instructions?

  Contacts/Comments:If so - BEWARE - these are not halfword fields, they are two byte unsigned integers, and can contain values up to 64K, not 32K. They should be manipulated using ICM, not MVH type instructions

• Name: Neil Price from TNT - tel. 01827 710702

  Problem:DBCTL Region produces millions of JES message per week. Currently they recycle weekly, but plan to do so less frequently - perhaps running for thee months. This could cause problems with filling the SPOOL.

  Contacts/Comments: Suggestions Use DFSAOE00 to suppress unwanted messages? Review routcodes in IMSGEN? Raise question on the MVSL list server?

LUNCH

IMS V7 Is Here - Alan Cooper, IBM

IMS V7 was made Generally Available on October 27 ^th 2000. Alan provided an overview of the main enhancements in this release, which is essentially a Database Release

• High Availability Large Databases (HALDB)
• Rapid Network Reconnect
• Shared Queue Enhancement
• Rationalisation of Message Routing/Edit Exits
• Fast Path Enhancements

An IMS V7 IMSplex achieved rate of 11,246 transactions per second in a recent benchmark.

Handouts were provided. Please email if you would like to receive a copy by email.

ONLINE DEFRAG - Richard Penfold, BMC Software

Richard presented BMC's latest addition to their IMS Reorganisation Product Line - Online Defrag.

By way of introduction Richard charted the development of BMC's IMS database tools from their original form as separate Unload, Load, Prefix Resolution and Secondary Index utilities, then the single step 'Fast Reorg Facility', on through the Extended Performance (EP) versions, to the 'Concurrent Reorg Facility' which provides online update access to the database while the reorganisation takes place, with only a one to two minute outage before and after the reorg.

The new product is a radical departure from the 'traditional' approach to IMS database reorganisation in two respects. Firstly it allows reorganisation to take place with NO interruption to IMS Update access to the database. Secondly it allows reorganisation of only the parts of the database that are disorganised.

The product has two basic modes of operation

• Record mode, which reorganises specific database records, based on user specified criteria.
• Block Mode, which reorganise the entire database, and consolidates all free space at the end of the database.

The product also includes a SCAN utility that determines which records need to be reorganised.

Handouts were provided. Please email to receive a copy by email.

Dougie's Holiday Snaps - Dougie Lawson, IBM

Dougie gave us a presentation on a recent residency in IBM's ITSO, in Poughkeepsie. He was part of a working group which was set up to provide an 'Off the Shelf" training environment for an OS/390 Parallel Sysplex, running IMS DB2 and CICS.

The 'deliverable' includes a collection of 'Operational Scenarios' for the base OS390, and the main subsystems. These included 'orderly' changes to the configuration, and 'disruptive' events such as loss of a Coupling Facility (CF), loss of CF link, failure of CF structures.

It does NOT include the recovery actions - encouraging installations to develop and document their own recovery procedures.

Delivery is still to be finalised, possibly through IBM Learning Services.

Dougie would appreciate any feedback on the likelihood that your installation would make use of this solution/tool either now or in the future, if it was available to you.

Handouts were provided. Please email to receive a copy by email.

AOB

None

Meeting feedback

Topic	Comments	Score
IBM - What's New?	Useful, especially V7 dates. Education update is always useful.	4.07
IBM DB Tools II	Second time I've heard this - Alan seems to get faster flicking through the goodies. If IBM keep on tarting up their tools like this we had better start treating them like an ISV when it comes to GSE meetings!	4.07
Attunity Connect	This got a bit confusing, not helped by the presenter's lack of IMS understanding. Hmmm - interesting read only pitch. Unlikely to be of widespread interest accessing operational data in read only mode (without integrity?).	2.46
IMS V7 is here	Highlighted seveal enhancements I hadn't spotted. Positive!	4.36
BMC Online Defrag	Zero minutes? We'll be wanting 25 hours a day next.. A good presentation - well done.	4.23
Dougie's Poughkeepsie Residence	This could be a very useful offering as we're planning migration top parallel sysplex in 2001. I know where to go if and when we ever go to sysplex. Already sysplex - but there's still stuff to be learnt!	3.53
Rating of IBM, Manchester	Chairs a bit uncomfortable. Very Handy for us up North. No sign outside building saying 'IBM'. Easy to get to from Lancashire - I like Manchester!	3.93