I worked in several shops that had both IMS and CICS. I was always a CICS
guy, and know essentially nothing about IMS/DC or IMS/TM...and always
wondered why a shop would run both transaction processors.

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 1:11 PM Lionel B. Dyck <[email protected]> wrote:

> For history see
> https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/zos-basic-skills?topic=now-history-ims-beginnings-nasa
> and https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=377307&seqNum=2
>
> From the 2nd link:
>
> IMS is still a viable, even unmatched, platform to implement very large
> online transaction processing (OLTP) systems and, in combination with Web
> Application Server technology, it is the foundation for a new generation of
> Web-based, high-workload applications.
>
> Here are some interesting facts about how IMS is used.
>
> IMS manages a large percentage of the world's corporate data.
>
> Over 95% of Fortune 1000 companies use IMS.
> IMS manages over 15 million gigabytes of production data.
> $2.5 trillion (in US dollars) per day is transferred through IMS by one
> customer.
> IMS processes over 50 billion transactions per day.
>
> IMS serves over 200 million users every day.
> IMS processes over 100 million transactions per day for one customer.
> IMS processes over 120 million transactions per day (7 million per hour)
> for another customer.
> IMS can process 21,000 transactions per second (over 1 billion per day)
> using IMS data sharing and shared queues.
> A single IMS has processed over 6000 transactions per second over a single
> TCP/IP connection.
>
>
> Lionel B. Dyck <><
> Website: https://www.lbdsoftware.com
> Github: https://github.com/lbdyck
>
> “Worry more about your character than your reputation. Character is what
> you are, reputation merely what others think you are.”   - - - John Wooden
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf
> Of Schmitt, Michael
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 1:05 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it
> survives
>
> No, I don’t know of an IMS/TM + DB2 system.
>
> But then the CICS systems I work with are also not using DB2. They use
> VSAM!
>
> And even for IMS/DB, my gut feel is there are a lot more CICS + IMS/DB
> installations than IMS/TM + IMS/DB.
>
>
> Also, CICS is from ~1966, IMS/DC (later renamed to IMS/TM in IMS Version
> 4) must have been much later than that, but I can't find the date.
>
> Reason I think I it is much later (late 70's? early 80's?) is because, as
> I understand it, the reason CICS was designed the way it is was because at
> the time, the OS it ran on wasn't so great at multitasking. Or maybe didn't
> do multitasking at all. But IMS/DC was designed at a time when the OS was
> good at preemptive multitasking between tasks and jobs. Was this MVS?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On Behalf
> Of David Spiegel
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 12:38 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why it
> survives
>
> Hi Michael,
> I have yet to see a site running IMS/DC and not run IMS/DB.
> Have you actually seen this?
>
> BTW, the article had more than one technical error. For example, a JCL
> Step name with 9 characters.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
> On 2023-07-25 13:16, Schmitt, Michael wrote:
> > The Ars Technica article was discussing CICS as an application server. I
> was comparing CICS as an application server to IMS/TM as an application
> server. The DBMS is a different issue; there's no reason why IMS/TM must be
> used with IMS/DB. You can use IMS/TM with DB2.
> >
> > The point I was trying to make was that CICS was designed as a
> cooperative multitasking system that reproduces all of the OS functions in
> itself. IMS/TM (originally IMS/DC) was designed to use the OS to do OS
> things and does none of that in itself, so it is *much* simpler.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On
> > Behalf Of David Spiegel
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 11:48 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Subject: Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and
> > why it survives
> >
> > Hi Michael,
> > You said: "...CICS is to IMS as Windows 3.1 is to Windows 10. ..."
> > You're comparing apples and oranges.
> > (CICS has no native Database portion.) BTW, a lot of the banks,
> > insurance companies etc. are running CICS+DB2.
> > The majority of IMS users need it to support 40+ year old application
> > systems.
> > Which one is the real dinosaur? (Hint: It's not CICS)
> >
> > Regards,
> > David
> >
> > On 2023-07-25 10:37, Schmitt, Michael wrote:
> >> So CICS is no longer doing cooperative multitasking within each AOR,
> and thus requiring CICS versions of OS commands to prevent wait states from
> freezing the entire AOR? A CICS program can do direct GETMAINs, LOADS,
> abends, rather than use CICS commands? CICS no longer requires special
> versions of tools (e.g. debugger, abend dump management) and instead can
> use the same tools as batch programs? A CICS programmer no longer needs to
> learn a long list of CICS commands and EXEC CICS syntax? A CICS region no
> longer contains the storage from all of the transactions currently running
> and is now only one transaction in the region at a time? CICS transactions
> can no longer stomp on each other's memory?
> >>
> >> Great, I did not know that.
> >>
> >> IMS/TM uses the operating system for multitasking. There are no IMS/TM
> specific tools. An IMS/TM programmer only needs to know two commands, one
> to get a message and another to send it. IMS transaction abends look
> (almost) exactly like a batch abend. IMS programs have no restrictions on
> OS facilities. An IMS program can even do an STIMER (WAIT) without
> affecting any other transaction processing. Because, it uses the OS to do
> *preemptive* multitasking, like a modern operating system.
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On
> >> Behalf Of Crawford Robert C (Contractor)
> >> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 8:14 AM
> >> To: [email protected]
> >> Subject: Re: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and
> >> why it survives
> >>
> >> Sorry, I worked in a shop that had both and I can tell you CICS is way
> more flexible, modern and performed better.
> >>
> >> I will give you this:  IMS is a great piece of 90's technology.
> >>
> >> Robert Crawford
> >> Abstract Evolutions LLC
> >> (210) 913-3822
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <[email protected]> On
> >> Behalf Of Schmitt, Michael
> >> Sent: Monday, July 24, 2023 11:43 AM
> >> To: [email protected]
> >> Subject: [EXT] Ars Technica: The IBM mainframe: How it runs and why
> >> it survives
> >>
> >> Ars Technica published a deep-dive explainer of modern IBM mainframes:
> >>
> >> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/the-ibm-mainfr
> >> ame-how-it-runs-and-why-it-survives/
> >>
> >>
> >> I’d quibble with the application server topic that talks about CICS
> >> with no mention of IMS/TM. CICS is to IMS as Windows 3.1 is to
> >> Windows 10.  😊
> >>
> >>
> >>
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-- 
Jay Maynard

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