Additional CICS Products With Powerful Uses

This is the third post on this series about CICS® products. This week, I will finish the discussion of different CICS products that have system and application management uses. I will use a two-part framework that I discussed in some detail in last week’s article. This article includes a discussion of six different products as well as a Solution Pack, which is a convenient way to purchase CICS Optimization Tools at a reduced price.

CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS

CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS® (CICS PA) is a effective off-line reporting tool to help tune and manage CICS systems. System programmers, performance analysts and developers can use reports and plug-in views. These tools help identify and eliminate the causes of online performance challenges. The tools help tune CICS systems for optimum performance, as well as to analyze trends for capacity planning.
 
CICS PA provides an impressive set of reports and extracts to help you analyze and tune the performance of CICS systems and applications. One example is the performance totals report, which provides comprehensive resource usage analysis of an entire CICS system including individual transactions. Another report example is the wait analysis report, which summarizes transaction activity organized by wait time.
 
Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Performance

CICS Transaction Gateway

CICS Transaction Gateway (CICS TG) is a connector for enterprise modernization of CICS applications and their resources. It empowers various application platforms to integrate with CICS, including Java® servlets, applets and Microsoft® .NET framework-based applications. It also connects C and COBOL applications. CICS TG provides application programmers with APIs and offers effective administration support with Java EE application servers.
 
CICS TG for z/OS delivers access to CICS applications through standards-based interfaces, with little or no change to CICS systems and applications. The product provides scalable, multi-user access to CICS Transaction Server for z/OS and is the recommended option for environments where the highest qualities of service, availability, performance and security are required.
 
CICS TG includes these three offerings:

1. CICS TG Desktop Edition, which provides single user desktop connectivity to CICS applications from a wide variety of client environments
2. CICS TG for Multiplatforms, which provides multi-user, access to IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, for VSE, for System i and IBM TXSeries for Multiplatforms.
3. CICS TG for z/OS, which provides connectivity to CICS Transaction Server for z/OS applications for multiple users

Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Availability, performance and security

CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS

IBM CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS automates data recovery after physical or logical corruption occurs. It provides recovery replication logging capabilities that provide continuous availability for both mobile and traditional workloads. This provides quicker error recovery, less offline processing, minimized application outages and reduced compliance risk. The product also has support for replicating VSAM data for IBM Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex.
 
Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Availability and backup/restore

CICS VSAM Recovery for z/VSE   

CICS VSAM Recovery for z/VSE automates data recovery for VSAM data sets that are lost or damaged due to device failure, disk corruption and erasure of data or disaster. Use of this product makes it possible to recover from errors more quickly with decreased offline processing. This results in application outages with minimized time lost and reduced compliance risk.
 
CICS VSAM Recovery for z/VSE provides forward recovery and backout functions, plus logging for batch applications. The archive utility creates a report with summary information on all the VSAM data sets detected and makes copies of your system log. These functions make it possible to respond faster to major outages and improve operational efficiency .
 
Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Availability and backup/restore

CICS VSAM Transparency for z/OS  

CICS VSAM Transparency helps companies move valuable data from VSAM files to IBM Db2® tables. This migration can change as your business requirements dictate, without having to modify CICS and batch VSAM application programs. Users can access the IBM Db2 data continuously, as well as integrate their data with new and existing IBM Db2 applications, preserving core investments while avoiding application rewrites that can be costly and complex.
 
The main product benefits include the ability to support world-wide markets with no batch windows, simpler integration with new applications and channels and the ability to run ad hoc queries and perform data analysis. You can use the product to avoid data-synchronization issues while opening up use of the extensive tooling portfolio for Db2.
 
Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Availability

OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS

OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS provides system monitoring and performance management for IBM Z systems. It centrally monitors and manages CICS transactions and interactions with other applications. The product is used to find problems quickly by taking fewer steps. Also, by using capabilities such as self-describing agents and PARMGEN, a parameter-based installation option can save time.
 
OMEGAMON for CICS offers a 3270 user interface that spans the OMEGAMON product family and integrates views of the environment into a single screen. OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS can be purchased as part of the IBM OMEGAMON for z/OS Management Suite as well as the  IBM OMEGAMON Performance Management Suite for z/OS.
 
Orientation: Both system and application
Focus: Monitoring/management, performance and problem

CICS Optimization Solution Pack for z/OS

CICS Optimization Solution Pack for z/OS provides a convenient way to purchase IBM CICS Tools for z/OS at a reduced, inclusive price. The pack includes CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS, CICS Deployment Assistant for z/OS, CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS and CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS, plus integrated plug-ins for IBM CICS Explorer that can simplify use for new staff and increase the productivity of experienced users.

Orientation and Focus Recap

All products had both a system and application orientation reflecting the intimacy between the CICS transaction server software and the applications that it runs and supports. CICS TS doesn’t run for itself but rather it’s constantly working on behalf of transactions, programs and their data.
 
The question of the specific focus of the CICS software was more granular and is summarized in the table below.
 

Focus	Product
Analysis	CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS
Availability	CICS Batch Application Control for z/OS CICS Transaction Gateway CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS CICS VSAM Transparency for z/OS
Backup/Recovery	CICS VSAM Recovery for z/OS
Change	CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS
Configuration	CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS
Deploy	CICS Deployment Assistant for z/OS
Monitor/Manage	CICS Explorer OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS
Optimization	CICS Configuration Manager for z/OS CICS Deployment Assistant for z/OS CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS
Performance	CICS Online Transmission Time Optimizer (OTTO) CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS CICS Transaction Gateway OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS
Problem	OMEGAMON for CICS on z/OS
Security	CICS Transaction Gateway

 

Next Week

Next week, I will focus back on the ECC Conference from June now that they have made the materials from the conference generally available.