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alamelu1984
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Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 40
Location: bangalore
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hi all,
what is the difference between a conversational and a non-conversational program?? |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 826
Location: Wilmington, DE
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Well, a conversational uses a SPA - a work area attached to the specific user much like CICS. A SPA can use 2 different internally defined areas - no matter, a conversational uses a lot of resources. I doubt very much if you will find SPA area defined conversational processing in the heavy hitter much used systems, like banks and airlines.
A non-conversational does not use a SPA. It is true transaction processing.
Generally, you cannot inter-mingle the 2. |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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hi sandy,
if there is no spa area in a program then is it a must that it is a non-conversational program???
my program does not use a spa-area and i m trying to navigate between programs using call statement and the linkage section... im passing the data to other programs using linkage section... and navigating using pf keys...so is my appliction purely non-conversational.... |
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Devzee
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Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Posts: 684
Location: Hollywood
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| Quote: |
| A non-conversational does not use a SPA |
I dont agree with this.
Non Conversational MPP program can be designed/developed without SPA. SPA is not mandatory. SPA is one of the technique which can be used to develop Non Conversational MPP programs |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 826
Location: Wilmington, DE
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A non conversational MPP program does not use a SPA - isn't that what I said? A conversational program can have it's SPA area defined in core or disk. I personally prefer true transaction MPP processing - much more efficient. A conversational with a SPA is like having to carry your luggage when you board a plane. A transaction invoked is like just boarding the plane without all that baggage!
girish_s - you are on the right path! |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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hi sandy..
thanks for ur timely reply..
while defining transactions to the program spa size of 80 has been included.. but im not using it in the program.... so is my program a conversational or non-conversational...??
basically im a lil confused abt this...
thanks in advance.... |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Posts: 826
Location: Wilmington, DE
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| If a SPA is defined, you are definitely conversational even tho you are not using it. Does the rest of your online system use the SPA area? |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 826
Location: Wilmington, DE
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| Another thing - is your online system menu driven? |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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hi sandy...
| Quote: |
| Does the rest of your online system use the SPA area? |
none of the programs use the spa area in the application...
| Quote: |
| is your online system menu driven?? |
yes, my online system is menu driven.... |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Location: Wilmington, DE
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| If none of the programs use it, then why is it defined? So, NONE of the programs in the system use it? You are passing info either thru linkage or hidden fields on your screens? |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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| ya none of the programs use it... the dba has defined it... yes im passing the info using linkage section... |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Location: Wilmington, DE
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| Tell your DBA that you do not need a SPA and that your processing will be much more efficient without it defined in your system. Maybe your DBA thinks you need it? |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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ya wil talk to the dba... but considering this scenario, this program is conversational rite???
and by removing the spa wil the my program become non-conversational?? |
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Sandy Zimmer
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Posts: 826
Location: Wilmington, DE
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Maybe the "labels" are confusing? You will still have a "conversation" with your MPP-no-SPA-defined transactions. Just tell your DBA that you want a true transaction based MPP online IMS DC system.
When I first learned IMS, the installation used the SPA area. Seems like a million and one years ago. The online IMS system interfaced with a 3790 DPCX which was an assembler based system - they called it "distributed processing". It was a manufacturing environment.
Then I went to work for a bank - whoa! While developing systems, tech support timed your transactions. If you were not efficient and bogged down the online system - you were either not allowed to install your system or moved to the oinker class. No SPA area was allowed - ever! |
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girish_s
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Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 45
Location: india
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hi sandy...
thanks a lot for the input.. now i have to convince the dba..  ...
| Quote: |
| Seems like a million and one years ago |
really appreciate that....  |
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Bitneuker
CICS Moderator
Joined: 07 Nov 2005
Posts: 1104
Location: The Netherlands at Hole 19
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One might have found out by following the first link in my signature of one of the stickies  I keep advising to take a look over there first and post whenever the requirement hasn't been solved. For this particular topic TS might have found IMS Conversations
Definitions:
A conversational program is an MPP that processes transactions made up of several steps. It does not process the entire transaction at the same time. A conversational program divides processing into a connected series of terminal-to-program-to-terminal interactions. You use conversational processing when one transaction contains several parts.
A nonconversational program receives a message from a terminal, processes the request, and sends a message back to the terminal. A conversational program receives a message from a terminal, and replies to the terminal, but saves the data from the transaction in a scratchpad area (SPA). Then, when the person at the terminal enters more data, the program has the data it saved from the last message in the SPA, so it can continue processing the request without the person at the terminal having to enter the data again.
This topic can be found in: IMS Application Programming: Transaction Manager (6.2 MB)
by searching for 'nonconversational' (
and hit this
or........this
Conversational programs
An IMS™ program will support both a transaction composed of one step and a transaction composed of several steps, the latter of which is referred to as a conversational transaction.
Most sections of this documentation, when talking about IMS transactions, are referring to nonconversational transactions, which take one step to complete. In contrast, an IMS conversational program processes transactions made up of several steps. The IMS TM resource adapter supports both, and this section is dedicated to this latter, special type of IMS transaction.
An IMS conversational program divides processing into a connected series of client-to-program-to-client interactions. The IMS conversational program receives messages from the client, processes the requests and replies to the client. The program also saves the intermediate data from the transaction in the scratch pad area (SPA). The user can enter more data from the client, and using the data from the last message in the SPA, the IMS conversational program will continue processing the request.
after searching for this
Now a lot of time and effort has been spent while it is, like almost everthing, in the (internet)book  |
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