Ah, UADS. A prime example of archaic mechanism. Defensible technically? Probably not, although a security administrator who needs to know which account numbers or which proclibs a user is authorized to use might tell a different story. With UADS, a simple list command tells the story. With TSOE segment, it's a data mining operation. This difference alone has inhibited conversion in some shops.
Consider a bigger problem. A shop has been in business for decades. In-house RYO tools have been developed over the years to enable clerical security personnel to manage addition, modification, and deletion of userids. All based on UADS. IBM certainly supports the conversion process, but switching to TSOE segment would require rewriting all of these in-house tools from the ground up. Benefit? 'Modernization'. For the vast majority of users, there is no perceivable difference. Who will fund this change and why? The business units (clients) who must pony up the funds will not see any demonstrable benefits. A tough sell. So UADS lives on. I don't believe that native ISAM is even supported anymore. Back then the ISAM application I referred to was economical to run because it was old, did what was needed, and best of all did not require any updating. IIP allowed a few *external* changes to deliver a major performance boost. An easy business case to sell. As I said earlier, I'm not arguing against moving forward with COBOL. Just seeking some forbearance towards shops that see issues on the horizon. . . J.O.Skip Robinson Southern California Edison Company Electric Dragon Team Paddler SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager 323-715-0595 Mobile [email protected] > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] > On Behalf Of R.S. > Sent: Friday, January 29, 2016 02:49 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [Bulk] Re: COBOL v5 > > W dniu 2016-01-29 o 19:17, Skip Robinson pisze: > > We ran an inherited ISAM application in the 80s, a true dog. Then we > > learned of a VSAM conversion aid that was at the time built in to > > whatever then passed for DFSMS. It was magical. Simply convert files > > from ISAM to VSAM and point the application to them. The system > > automatically transformed all ISAM I/O operations to VSAM and returned > data to the application as it expected. > > Absolutely no changes to the application. The result was breath taking. > > > > I'd be curious to know if that conversion aid is still delivered with z/OS. > > > It's called IIP - ISAM Interface Program. > It is designed to use VSAM datasets with ISAM applications. Another reason to > not understand people who insisted to use ISAM (which was the case even > after 2000). > > BTW: Similar example (in human behavior) could be TSO segment. Some > people still use SYS1.UADS for that, while migration can be done with one > command, IBM-prepared REXX script. I believe there are no advantages of > using UADS, despite it is still supported. > > > -- > Radoslaw Skorupka > Lodz, Poland ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
