Thanks a lot to everybody responded. Sam, moving production files to a DBMS is not an option at this time as it would require enormous changes to the applictions. And, yes, we are talking about thousands of files.
David, I am not longer a fan of any smart "hooks" into MVS services [certainly not into OPEN or SVC 99 logic] mainly because of the potential issues with code maintenance. [Although I have to admit, 25 years ago it was fun to take over DOS 3.x by coding your own $$B-transient module that would merely change the new PSW address for, say, Program Interruptions, to an address passed on the call and then just execute the $$B-module <was it through SVC 2?> from your problem state routine and divide something by zero]. And field-level encryption, again, requires massive changes to the applications. TomW, Buying a product that allows to add SUBSYS= to a given DD would be difficult to justify, but I'd love to learn what MVS services it uses to perform its magic in the case of a dynamic allocation. TomS, I know very little about BatchPipes, but from your description they don't sound any better than the subsystem approach in terms of the issue with dynamic allocation. As to your question - the confidential fields [like the social security number] would be returned scrambled. Obviuosly they won't participate in any arithmetic computation, nor can they serve as the "keys" to further locate any associated data. Still trolling for ideas, -Victor- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
