IBM Transaction Flash: IBM "CICS" Java Into High Gear for E-Business.SOMERS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 1998-- New CICS (Customer Information Control System) A TP monitor from IBM that was originally developed to provide transaction processing for IBM mainframes. It controls the interaction between applications and users and lets programmers develop screen displays without Transaction Server software will let customers easily Web-enable their existing assets and evolve new transactional applications for e-business Consider how companies move into the world of e-business... First, they start with a web server and a business idea -- stock transactions, online book clubs, retail catalogs. Suddenly, perhaps after a television ad, their online transaction rate increases by a multiple of 50. For the first time, these companies are in a non-stop, 24x7x52 world where scaleability and reliability are critical to the success of their business. Can their application servers handle it? Only if they have the right tools, from the right company. Each day, more than 16,000 IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) customers worldwide, including 99 of the Fortune 100 and 475 of the Fortune 500, rely on CICS to handle their transactions. That's nearly 30 billion transactions per day -- more hits than the Worldwide Web over the same period. In fact, more companies in all industries use CICS to handle high-volume transactions than any other application server. Last year, for example, CICS managed more than $100 billion in transactions, the same as NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on . Leading companies around the world are recognizing that CICS provides the right foundation for their 21st century enterprise server solutions. It's not hard to see why. This truly scaleable and reliable applications server can manage more than 150,000 concurrent users. (In contrast, Microsoft has suggested it will support just 1,400 concurrent users sometime next year.) Perhaps that is why CICS enjoys the support of over 2000 ISVs, 5000 application packages and one million CICS programmers -- meaning even more CICS-based programs and extensions are on the way to further support Web-based transaction processing Updating the appropriate database records as soon as a transaction (order, payment, etc.) is entered into the computer. It may also imply that confirmations are sent at the same time. Transaction processing systems are the backbone of an organization because they update constantly. . Well, IBM is making a good thing even better. IBM has unveiled plans to evolve its CICS Transaction Server (CICS TS) for high-volume, mission critical e-business applications, and has announced details for the next generation of CICS -- CICS TS 1.3. Speaking to an audience of more than 1,000 CICS customers and business partners at last week's annual IBM CICS Technical Conference in Washington, DC, Rob Lamb, IBM's CICS Business Manager, outlined a four-step roadmap to help CICS customers (1) rapidly leverage their investments to take advantage of high-volume, enterprise e-business and (2) provide a sound foundation for the deployment of new mission critical Web-based applications. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Lamb, "The roadmap is designed to help customers move at their own pace to the world of Internet transactions, bringing their existing assets to the Web while creating new applications as they need them to stay competitive. It's evolutionary -- not revolutionary." IBM CICS/390 Roadmap Step 1: Extending Existing CICS Assets to the Web IBM is providing HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. and Java interfaces for both new and existing CICS applications, without changing those applications. This allows users to securely and reliably connect existing mainframe applications to network computers and the Web. These extensions are available today as a free download from the Web http://www.software.ibm.com/ts/cics/. Step 2: Java Wrapping Typically, desktop programmers have different skills than mainframe programmers, and vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. . CICS TS 1.3 will bring the power of these two worlds together by allowing programmers to wrap traditional CICS programming, such as COBOL COBOL: see programming language. COBOL in full Common Business-Oriented Language. High-level computer programming language, one of the first widely used languages and for many years the most popular language in the business community. , with Java. This feature will let desktop programmers work with familiar Java code to drive business programs running on a CICS/390 server. Server programmers will be able to re-use existing mainframe programs or create new ones, and then "wrap" them with a few lines of Java code to make it easy for use by a desktop programmer. The protocol between the Java code and server wrapper A data structure or software that contains ("wraps around") other data or software, so that the contained elements can exist in the newer system. The term is often used with component software, where a wrapper is placed around a legacy routine to make it behave like an object. will be CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) A software-based interface from the Object Management Group (OMG) that allows software modules (objects) to communicate with each other no matter where they are located on a private network or the global conformant. Step 3: 100% Pure Java Refers to initiatives from Sun that specify 100% compliance with its Java specification. The goal is to maintain a consistent, single interface for Java so that all Java Virtual Machines can run all Java programs. See Holy Grail. CICS TS 1.3 will also deliver the ability to write 100% pure Java CICS applications and CICS Java Beans See JavaBeans. . With this feature, the desktop Java code will remain the same, but the CICS programming will be pure Java instead of wrapped code. IBM will provide a set of Java classes that map to CICS/390 services. Step 4: Full Enterprise Java Beans The final step in this evolution is the implementation of Enterprise Java Beans (EJB (Enterprise JavaBeans) A software component in Sun's J2EE platform, which provides a pure Java environment for developing and running distributed applications. EJBs are written as software modules that contain the business logic of the application. ) running on CICS/390, adding transactional capabilities to Java Beans. EJB will enable CICS programmers to write transaction programs once for deployment anywhere, as well as a rich set of development tools to ease the creation of these new applications. IBM will deliver server Java capability, extending the benefits of CICS -- monitoring, scaleability, and workload balancing -- to Java CICS programs. The first shipment of CICS TS 1.3 is planned for 3Q 1998 with general availability in early 1999. EJB implementation on CICS is planned for later in 1999. To learn more about how CICS is helping companies manage business transactions, visit the IBM CICS web site at http://www.ibm.software.com/ts/cics/. CONTACT: IBM Susan Rash, 212/745-3701 srash@us.ibm.com |
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