DataDirect CA IDMS OCA Extensions
Enhanced IDMS Integration with Heterogeneous Platforms
DataDirect offers a unique set of CA IDMS Extensions within the OCA family of APIs to assist developers facing the particular challenges of integrating IDMS database and application environments into heterogeneous platforms.
Each of the OCA products specifically addresses a particular limitation that hold developers back in integrating IDMS data and applications with common web-based, messaging database, and mainframe standards, as well as with other IDMS regions.
DataDirect's OCA-TCP/IP provides IDMS developers access to IBM's Socket Extended API. The high performance implementation of TCP/IP sockets offers new integration flexibility into IDMS functionality and options for communicating from IDMS to other sockets applications.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-TCP/IP is a high-performance, multi-threaded utility that closely follows IBM's implementation of sockets under CICS. All socket calls are identical under both products (IDMS and CICS).
- Full Socket API Support – OCA-TCP/IP supports all IBM Socket Extended API calls. The interface program can be invoked using either a static CALL or a dynamic #LINK. Because the OCA socket interface program can be invoked either statically or dynamically, all programming languages supported by IDMS can be used, including COBOL, PL/I, ADS/Online, and Assembler.
- Easy Communication with Other Platforms – All platforms have a socket interface invoked using most programming languages. Even though the socket calls themselves are not identical on all platforms, they use the same underlying protocol, so all programs that have access to a socket interface can communicate with each other. In some cases, an ASCII-EBCDIC conversion has to be performed for character strings. Routines are provided as part of IBM's TCP/IP to convert to and from ASCII. Both routines can be safely called from within IDMS.
- Multiple OCA Listeners – OCA-TCP/IP provides two listeners; one expects incoming data in EBCDIC format and the other expects ASCII data. These concurrent listeners handle multiple concurrent requests. Requests from many concurrent users are processed in parallel instead of queued one after each other. Furthermore, OCA-TCP/IP executes almost all of the additional cycles required by socket calls with MVS subtasks. The result is that the additional workload is shared between all the processors in the partition, with minimal impact on the IDMS environment.
- Custom Security – When security has to be enforced, the Listeners can invoke a user-written security exit before initiating the requested task. The exit can perform the security check itself and/or provide a user id under which the task will be executed.
- Perfect Integration with Internet/Intranet Strategy – Because the Internet is a TCP/IP network, any language application or applet can communicate directly with an IDMS application through the Internet or your Intranet. Direct communication is possible between the client and the server without any need for protocol conversion.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-MQSeries enables IDMS programs to use IBM's MQSeries middleware product. At the heart of MQSeries is the Message Queue Interface (MQI), an easy to use high level programming interface that allows applications to communicate transparently across the various platforms that make up your enterprise-wide computing environment.
- Full API Support – OCA-MQSeries supports all Message Queue Interface (MQI) calls. The interface program can be invoked using either a static CALL or a dynamic LINK (or TRANSFER). All functionality is supported including Two-Phase Commit, with the use of the optional OCA-Commit component.
- Full Programming Language Support – Because the OCA-MQSeries interface program can be invoked either statically or dynamically, all programming languages supported by IDMS can be used including COBOL, ADS/Online, PL/I and Assembler.
- Trigger Monitor Support – A Trigger Monitor is an application program that listens to a Trigger Queue (also called Initiation Queue). OCA-MQSeries instructs MQSeries to send a special message to a Trigger Queue when data is available in an application queue. The Trigger Monitor reads that message, which contains the name of the program that should be initiated, and starts the requested task. Multiple instances of the Trigger Monitor can be used to listen to any number of Trigger Queues.
- High Performance – OCA-MQSeries takes advantage of multiprocessing. Almost all of the additional cycles required by socket calls are executed by OS subtasks. This means that the additional workload is shared between all the processors in the partition.
- Enhanced Communications – At the heart of MQSeries is the Message Queue Interface (MQI), an easy to use high level programming interface that allows applications to communicate transparently and easily across the various platforms that make up your enterprise-wide computing environment.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-DB2 enables IDMS programs to directly access IBM DB2 databases using standard SQL requests. Two-phase commit is available if used together with OCA-COMMIT.
Access to DB2 is performed using the Call Attachment Facility (CAF) or the Recoverable Resource Manager Services Attachment Facility (RRSAF), if OCA-COMMIT is installed in the system.
- Static and Dynamic SQL Support – Accessing DB2 databases is as simple as coding both dynamic and static SQL requests in a COBOL program, running the program through the DB2 pre-compiler and then through usual CA IDMS procedures. When executing the program within IDMS, OCA-DB2 allocates a DB2 connection and performs the requests without any impact on the CV performance.
- Two-Phase (2PC) Commit – Working in concert, OCA-DB2 and OCA-COMMIT performs simultaneous updates in both CA-IDMS and DB2 with 100% integrity between both databases.
- Reduced Costs – The traditional way of accessing DB2 from IDMS employs APPC to trigger a CICS program that performs the DB2 access and returns the requested information. APPC programming can be tedious and maintaining those programs can be expensive. OCA-DB2 makes it very easy to access DB2 data, and leverage two-phase commit capabilities.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-EXCI provides a familiar, easy and efficient interface for accessing those resources with no additional development effort through the use of CICS EXCI calls.
When used with other DataDirect OCA components such as OCA-Commit and OCA-Syslink, OCA-EXCI provides a complete, robust and secure solution for accessing and updating simultaneous resources in a multi-vendor environment.
- Full Programming Language Support – OCA-EXCI works with all programming languages supported by IDMS including COBOL, ADS/Online, PL/I and Assembler.
- Full EXEC CICS Support – If a piece of business logic already exists under CICS, DataDirect OCA-EXCI reuses that program by inserting an EXEC CICS LINK statement in a COBOL DC program. The remote invocation is completely transparent to the CICS module. A similar situation arises with CICS-based packages. Even though that package may offer an API, it is useless from within IDMS. OCA-EXCI inserts EXEC CICS LINK statements in your IDMS programs and directly invoke the package's API.
- Full EXCI CALL Interface Support – DataDirect's OCA-EXCI makes the process of using CICS programs from IDMS as easy as using them from within CICS. One single statement is all that is needed to invoke that program, instead of numerous APPC calls using interface modules in both CICS and IDMS. When multiple CICS program calls are necessary, EXCI offers a second programming interface (EXCI CALL interface) that is more efficient (in multiple call situations) than the single call interface.
- Enhanced Platform Access – OCA-EXCI invokes CICS modules to access non-IDMS resources such as IMS, Oracle, MQSeries, VSAM, etc, by inserting an EXEC CICS LINK statement in the IDMS program, which calls the CICS access module, reads or writes to the resource and returns whatever data is needed.
- Robust Database Synchronization – DataDirect's OCA-EXCI, used in conjunction with OCA-Commit, performs concurrent updates in multiple IDMS databases or other CICS resources with guaranteed data integrity. DataDirect's OCA-Commit is the only product that can perform two-phase commits between IDMS and other CICS resources such as DB2, CICS, IMS, MQSeries, VSAM, as well as non-IBM products supporting the CICS two-phase commit process.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-Commit allows CICS transactions to perform two-phase commits between IDMS and all other external resources supported by CICS, including DB2, IMS and MQSeries.
OCA-Commit integrates CICS-IDMS run-units in the CICS resource coordinator two phase commit process. By calling the CICS SYNCPOINT instead of IDMS COMMIT, transactions are able to obtain a synchronized automatic treatment between all supported external resource managers.
The two-phase commit protocol is a distributed algorithm which lets all participants in a distributed system agree to commit a transaction. The protocol results in either all participants committing the transaction or aborting it, even in the case of site failure and message losses.
The two-phase commit algorithm is broken into the PREPARE-TO-COMMIT phase, where the coordinator, in this case CICS, attempts to prepare all the participants, and the COMMIT phase, where the coordinator complete the transactions for all participants.
- Two-Phase (2PC) Commit – Working in concert, OCA-DB2 and OCA-COMMIT performs simultaneous updates in both CA-IDMS and DB2 with 100% integrity between both databases.
- Safe and Consistent Multi-DBMS Transactions – With the help of OCA-Commit, transactions access and update data in IDMS and any other supported resource manager, maintaining transactional consistency across all resources in case of failure. Enterprises can safely make use of all resources simultaneously without fear that a system failure will leave data in an inconsistent state.
- Guaranteed Transactional Integrity – Using OCA-Commit, a CICS transaction concurrently updates two or more IDMS databases and guarantee transactional integrity across all databases. Database segmentation suddenly becomes a lot more attractive.
- Converting without Loss – There are many cases where it is deemed profitable to convert part or the totality of a system from one DBMS technology to another. This has traditionally been an almost intractable problem for IDMS users because it was impossible to guarantee data integrity across DBMS. OCA-Commit now allows customers to move data and application to and from IDMS.
DataDirect's IDMS Extension OCA-SYSLINK allows the implementation of a Sysplex-wide, high performance front-end/back-end architecture without the need for DDS. It makes it possible to take advantage of available computing resources by moving workloads efficiently across any Sysplex machine.
- Full Programming Language Support – OCA-SYSLINK works with all programming languages supported by IDMS including COBOL, ADS/Online, PL/I and Assembler.
- Enhanced Resource Allocation – Available for IDMS and CICS front-ends, DataDirect's OCA-SYSLINK takes advantage of all the computing resources available in a Sysplex. With OCA-SYSLINK, it is easy to move workloads across the Sysplex according to available resources or to quickly respond to system outages.
- TRU (Transfer Run-Unit) Function – The use of the TRU function allows the transfer of a run-unit initiated by a IDMS task to a CICS transaction by calling that CICS program using OCA-EXCI. All run-unit, currency and recovery information is transferred from the CA-IDMS task to the OCA-EXCI invoked CICS transaction. Furthermore, if that CICS transaction updates additional CICS resources and performs a SYNCPOINT, OCA-Commit can include the transferred run-unit in the CICS two-phase commit process.
- Robust Performance – OCA-SYSLINK delivers high throughput, low overhead and maximum availability. OCA-SYSLINK makes it possible to move a production front-end environment to a different Sysplex node with little impact on response time and CPU consumption. OCA-SYSLINK can use both Sysplex and Cross-memory services, depending on the location of the target back-end environment.
- Backward Compatibility – No application changes are required to implement an OCA-SYSLINK cluster. All standard CA-IDMS calls are supported with the exception of LRF calls.
