Can records in IMS/DB be related using SETs (just as IDMS)?

SRICOBSAS · New User Joined: 07 Dec 2015 Posts: 19 Location: India

Hi Database Experts,

I am a COBOL developer and mainly use DB2 as backend for my applications.

Recently, I have been included into a migration project wherein IMS/DB records need to be migrated to CA-IDMS. I was selected because of my COBOL skills however this new project requires lots of understanding on IMS/DB and CA-IDMS- both of which are new to me.

The problem is this project is still going through SOW negotiations. Till that time I cant contact the backend database admin teams.

Meanwhile I have been told to look into the COBOL apps which use the DL/I interfaces to retrieve the records from the backend IMS/DB and also take a look at the existing IDMS schemas (during the requirements gathering stage my team was given some trainings but nothing beyond that) and suggest performance improvements and even give my inputs to create a migration plan.

I would be grateful if the experts could help me out regarding the capabilities of IMS/DB

I understand that in CA-IDMS a CALC+RECORD+SET combination helps frontend applications to retrieve records much faster than using normal table indexes:

plus.google.com/105480211036566033816/posts/LS1AqZ6E3Jm

Since going forward all IMS/DB data will be migrated to IDMS, I was curious whether IMS/DB has a similar "record association" capability? If yes, then I plan to start making COBOL changes to have the existing IMS/DB records to be retrieved using these "record relationships." This will greatly help me in my migration activity.

I would be grateful if the experts can provide some actual COBOL DL/I code which utilizes any such "record association objects" in IMS/DB.

Thanks & Regards,
Infra Application Developer

prino · Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:01 pm

Holy flucking 'ell, a project manager for an migration from IMS to IDMS project asking for help here, because he's got no knowledge of either.

Please tell us which major US/European company is about to do this, so that we can break all ties with it, to prevent us from being locked out of our accounts for weeks.

Rohit Umarjikar · Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2018 11:34 pm

You need to get the Basic straight by signing up for coaching class within your firm or outside or at the least go through the manuals or videos and get the understanding of how both the DB works and then it will be easy to do the Migration and understand the existing code. Such questions and answers to them might help temporarily but on a lager scale it don't.