CICS® Transaction Server 

Perhaps you already own IBM's® CICS Transaction Server (CICS TS) and are considering an upgrade or maybe your business is looking into it for the first time. Either way, we at Cornerstone Systems would like to help you make a decision that is right for your business architecture, and in the process tell you about our Cornerstone technicians and how we plan to earn your business.

The majority of mainframe applications today have their base in CICS TS, which is notable for its execution of high-volume business applications. It supports the most popular business languages such as COBOL, PL/I, C/C++ and Java™, in addition to functioning as a Web services-based application server.  
CICS Transaction Server for z/OS® V3.2
Those of you who are running on z/OS would be interested in the latest version of CICS TS for z/OS V3.2, which builds on the prior CICS qualities of security, reliability, data integrity, and optimal application responsiveness. The newest changes are grouped into three areas:

Application Connectivity - New Web capabilities include support for recent standards and the ability to send large amounts of binary data efficiently. Communication between CICS regions over TCP/IP for Distributed Program Link (DPL) allows for the exploitation of System z™ IP networking.

Application Reuse - Enhancements to the efficiency of deploying Web services into CICS include managing a wider range of programming language and XML data types. Improved scalability and performance through the utilization of 64 bit storage for data held in containers.

Service Management - Improvements include easier management of online program libraries, which allows continuous system availability while bringing new or changed applications into production. Enhancements to the CICSPlex System Manager and its Web user interface with new help and map capabilities. 
Why Choose Cornerstone?
As a business owner or IT manager, you many wonder why you would want to hire Cornerstone when you have your own competent IT staff. If your technicians have been trained in CICS then perhaps you don't need us, but every business has its areas of strength. Our strength is in our employees, their certifications, and years of actually performing validation plans, installations, migrations, debugging and coding. In addition, sometimes you have to weigh the cost of trying to keep your IT staff up to date in so many diverse areas. It's what Cornerstone does as a business, so you don't have to spend the money to train your own staff.

A recent example where Cornerstone technical assistance has been beneficial to our clients, is in the detection of OS/VS COBOL in our customers application programs. This has become necessary because CICS TS for z/OS Version 3 will run COBOL but does not support OS/VS COBOL. You are probably aware that it is hard to know with any amount of certainty whether or not your existing application programs have any OS/VS COBOL in them (and where it is located within the programs). They will fail with V3.1 and above if the applications have ANY of the OS/VS COBOL language.

A common practice has been to simply install a test version of CICS and wait to see what fails. This procedure (which Cornerstone employees do not do) can quickly drain time and resources because of the repetitive nature of the test. In the course of debugging each failure, the test has to be run again until the application fails again when it locates the next occurrence of the OS/VS COBOL language. The running of the test and the debugging of each failure will go on until all occurrences of OS/VS COBOL have been located and corrected (or removed).

Our Cornerstone technicians are very resourceful and will use various scan utilities that have been developed in the field or that are on the market today. Some of these products produce reports that will list the individual application programs and what language they are in. Any application programs in the report which have OS/VS COBOL will not run and will need to have their code recompiled or removed.

There are new products on the market that may possibly convert your existing OS/VS COBOL language into straight COBOL. Cornerstone technicians are flexible and experienced and will use whatever tools are needed to efficiently install or upgrade your CICS TS.

It’s easy to want to buy a quick fix. We all want it. Sometimes it’s available, but other times the wisest decision is to speak with someone with years of experience, like our Cornerstone technicians.

CICS Transaction Server for VSE/ESA™ R1.1.1

If you are considering purchasing a new System z9™ or have already made that wise decision, then you will know that one of its many benefits is its ability to manage numerous operating systems on a single server, including z/VSE!

Around 9 years ago, IBM first included the CICS TS feature in VSE/ESA V2.4 (June 1999) at no additional expense. So now when you install z/VSE, CICS TS is automatically installed at the same time.

For those customers whose applications are already running on an older CICS (CICS 2.3), but have not tried CICS Transaction Server, IBM ships an optional item called the CICS Coexistence feature. This product will allow you to run your old CICS applications along with the CICS TS in z/VSE, so that you can migrate to CICS TS. CICS V4.2 will be the last release to support this feature. The current release of CICS on the market is V4.1.

Some of the new key features of CICS TS for VSE/ESA R1.1.1 are directly related to its ability to provide direct access to CICS applications from the Web. This includes (partial list):
•  CICS Web Support (CWS)
•  REXX for CICS
•  Subsystem Storage
•  CICS Transaction Gateway
•  Virtual Storage
•  System Management
•  Data Tables

Again…What Can Cornerstone Do for You?

What Cornerstone technical employees can do for you depends on what the system needs of your business are. If you are buying new Hardware, Software and/or Services from Cornerstone, then many of the technician’s services will be defined in your contract. This is especially true with CICS TS for VSE/ESA R1.1.1 being included with the operating system and therefore as part of the install procedure.

On the other hand if you have approached Cornerstone with a migration request, then we would sit with you and determine specifically what you would like from us concerning the migration of data, installation of the new product, current and future support, and perhaps training of your IT staff.  

Contact Us

If you are interested in speaking to someone at Cornerstone about CICS TS or any of our other services please call our Hotline at 1-800- 510-3004 and ask for Barbara Heppner. You may also email her at bheppner@csihome.com (please reference “CICS TS website” in the subject line). We look forward to hearing from you!