🚀 go-pugleaf

Gary Long <garyl@magna.com> wrote:
>>From: d4dmitc@sr.pacbell.com (Dave Mitchell)
>>Subject: Vis Basic to MVS DB2
>>Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 20:41:34 GMT
>>
>>We are converting our existing COBOL/DB2/CICS apps to a Visual Basic
>>front-end (running on Win/NT or Win 3.11) but the data will remain in
>>DB2 on MVS.  Has anyone had experience with doing this - what will I
>>need to get thru.  I have had suggestions of using a WIN NT server
>>with SNA Server and either STARSQL or Wall Data's RUMBA and I have
>>heard to use IBM's DDCS.  Any other suggestions?  We are very new at
>>this and right at the beginning, so any suggestions, comments would be
>>appreciated.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Dave
>
>Dave, it depends a lot on the type of application you are creating.  If it is 
>retrieval-intensive -- DSS or whatever -- then a DBMS gateway such as DDCS is 
>the right choice.  If it is transaction-oriented, then I highly recommend 
>IBM's CICS External Client Interface (ECI).
>
>For transacations, ECI is easy and clean.  Works like a charm.
>
>Your PC can send a message directly to a CICS/ESA COBOL program via SNA.  
>(ECI also works with to CICS/AIX.)  The CICS COBOL program gets the message 
>in the COMMAREA and replies the same way.  You can access data of any kind, 
>and also reuse legacy code.
>
>Only problem with the ECI is that it is C-oriented making it a little hard
>to use from PB or VB.  For our Application Generator we wrote a DLL to make 
>it easy (not a real big deal).
>
>-- Gary
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Gary Long                                                glong@magna.com
>Vice President, Product Development
>Magna Software Corporation                           Phone: 703/222-3500
>12450 Fair Lakes Circle                                Fax: 703/222-8433
>Fairfax, Virginia 22033
>
>Technical data on "MAGNA X" CS/TP Application Generator:  info@magna.com

Gary Long <garyl@magna.com> wrote:

=>>From: d4dmitc@sr.pacbell.com (Dave Mitchell)
=>>Subject: Vis Basic to MVS DB2
=>>Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 20:41:34 GMT
=>>
=>>We are converting our existing COBOL/DB2/CICS apps to a Visual
Basic
=>>front-end (running on Win/NT or Win 3.11) but the data will remain
in
=>>DB2 on MVS.  Has anyone had experience with doing this - what will
[snip]
=>>Thanks,
=>>
=>>Dave

=>Dave, it depends a lot on the type of application you are creating.
If it is 
=>retrieval-intensive -- DSS or whatever -- then a DBMS gateway such
as DDCS is 
=>the right choice.  If it is transaction-oriented, then I highly
recommend 
=>IBM's CICS External Client Interface (ECI).

=>For transacations, ECI is easy and clean.  Works like a charm.

=>Your PC can send a message directly to a CICS/ESA COBOL program via
SNA.  
=>(ECI also works with to CICS/AIX.)  The CICS COBOL program gets the
message 
=>in the COMMAREA and replies the same way.  You can access data of
any kind, 
=>and also reuse legacy code.

=>Only problem with the ECI is that it is C-oriented making it a
little hard
=>to use from PB or VB.  For our Application Generator we wrote a DLL
to make 
=>it easy (not a real big deal).

=>-- Gary

We are currently using DDCS.  As you said, retrieval works well and is
fairly quick.  Updating, on the other hand, with any volume, stinks.

We are in the process of creating stored procedures on the mainframe
to handle all updates.  Plan is to batch all updates and let the
stored procedure parse and apply.

Anyone have any real life experience with this type of approach?  

Michael Prowell wrote:

> 
> We are currently using DDCS.  As you said, retrieval works well and is
> fairly quick.  Updating, on the other hand, with any volume, stinks.
> 
> We are in the process of creating stored procedures on the mainframe
> to handle all updates.  Plan is to batch all updates and let the
> stored procedure parse and apply.
> 
> Anyone have any real life experience with this type of approach?

Have you considered using the "Compound SQL" feature supported by DDCS?
It allows you to batch a number of insert/update/delete/... SQL
statements in a single DRDA request that flows over the wire.

-- 
Gene Kligerman 
DB2 Development, IBM Software Solutions Toronto Lab
genie@vnet.ibm.com

Got a question? The DB2 Product and Service Technical Library might have
an
answer.  Search http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/support/servinfo

Gary Long <garyl@magna.com> wrote:
>>
>>We are converting our existing COBOL/DB2/CICS apps to a Visual Basic
>>front-end (running on Win/NT or Win 3.11) but the data will remain in
>>DB2 on MVS.  
>
>Dave, it depends a lot on the type of application you are creating.  If it is 
>retrieval-intensive -- DSS or whatever -- then a DBMS gateway such as DDCS is 
>the right choice.  If it is transaction-oriented, then I highly recommend 
>IBM's CICS External Client Interface (ECI).
>For transacations, ECI is easy and clean.  Works like a charm.
>Only problem with the ECI is that it is C-oriented making it a little hard
>to use from PB or VB.  For our Application Generator we wrote a DLL to make 
>it easy (not a real big deal).

I wouldn't recommend from the very beginning to create smth aside of standards, write 
proprietary DLL which in the future definitely face some incompatibility problems with newer 
releases and thus restrict some newer features. There's ODBC standard, there's DRDA standard, 
why not use? Why become dependable of CICS logic? The advantage of ODBC-oriented approach is 
that your environment stays open, and it's not a problem in the future to add some new 
ODBC-compliant data source. There are lots of ODBC-compliant tools, I am not that sure about 
CICS-compliant ones.

6 months ago I've commited the project written just in VB with remote DB2. The main manual I 
used was ODBC reference, not even DB2 one!

Vadim