Another CICS Celebration (maybe) – Congrats, Hursley!

IBM Hursley

I recently read that CICS development was moved to Hursley, UK, on August 2, 1974. If that is true, this marks the 40th anniversary of that occasion.

However … IBM has a technote that states that CICS support was moved to Hursley in 1976. But then, the RedBook “CICS from Start to Finish” says that CICS development was moved to Hursley in 1974.

Can anyone clarify?

Regardless of the exact history, the CICS folks at Hursley, as well as their counterparts in the States, have done an incredible job for many years keeping CICS relevant in this ever-changing industry.

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Happy Birthday CICS! 45 Years and Going Strong!

I read on John Knutson’s CICSbuzz newsletter that today, July 8, 2014, marks the 45th birthday for CICS. Just the other day I was just wearing my 35 years of CICS t-shirt that I must have bought from Bob Yelavich ten years ago. If you are not familiar with the CICS Buzz, I encourage you to check it out and subscribe. In this issue, there is lots of good info about CICS Transaction Gateway 9.1 (with RESTful JSON support for mobile devices) and a new CICS Modernization Solution Pack.

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IBM Impact 2014

I am fortunate once again to be attending IBM Impact. The general session again focused on mobile, and featured speakers from Tangerine Bank, Square, and Daimler Car2Go. Live demos did not go too well due to apparent networking issues, but speakers covered nicely.

Here are some of my biggest take-aways from today’s CICS sessions:

• The 5.2 Developer Trial can be turned into a full version without re-installing.
• The mobile feature pack introduced in 5.1 is integrated into the base in 5.2.
• “Simple” Occurs Depending On is supported in 5.2 web services.
• 5.2 has something called Multi-Versioning, which allows a new version of a program to be implemented, and taken out, quickly. It is possible to have the new version and old version available simultaneously.
• Of course, as with every new release of CICS in recent years, more things are moving above the bar for virtual storage relief, and more commands are threadsafe.
• It was not explicitly stated, but all indications are that the CICSPlex WUI is going away after V5. It is time to really start using the CICS Explorer, if you’re not already using it.

I had a great one-on-one “Lunch and Learn” session on the CICS Explorer. It was originally slated for myself and one other person, but they were a no-show. The session was a good review of many of the things I already knew, and I picked up a couple of new tidbits. The one-on-one and Lunch and Learn sessions alone pretty much make the trip for Impact worthwhile.

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