IBM 3.1 manual Improved performance and enterprise management, Threadsafe Web commands

Code-page conversion enhancements The function to convert data between EBCDIC or ASCII and Unicode, in either direction, is now added to the existing CICS Transaction Server ASCIII and EBCDIC code-page conversions. This support uses IBM z/OS® conversion services.

The code-page conversion capability applies to either UTF-8 or UTF-16, and support is also provided for conversion between these forms of Unicode.

Improved performance and enterprise management

The enterprise-management focus in CICS Transaction Server, Version 3.1 has been on providing a simple, flexible, intuitive and comprehensive Web user interface (WUI) from which all the CICS regions and associated resources in the enterprise can be managed efficiently. IBM has enhanced support for the open

Enhanced open transaction environment CICS Transaction Server, Version 3.1 extends the use of the OTE by providing support for COBOL, PL/I, Assembler and non-XPLink C/C++ OPENAPI application programs. The program runs on its own task control block (TCB) from the start. OPENAPI requires the application to be coded to threadsafe standards. Using nonthreadsafe CICS commands can cause a switch to the quasi-reentrant TCB (QR TCB), so that CICS can switch back to the OTE TCB before returning control to the program.

The main benefit of this support is that it allows application workloads to be moved from a single QR TCB onto multiple TCBs, enabling better utilization of machine resources to achieve better throughput.

Threadsafe Web commands

All EXEC CICS Web API commands have been made threadsafe. These commands include WEB READ, WEB WRITE, WEB SEND, WEB RECEIVE, WEB RETRIEVE, WEB STARTBROWSE, WEB READNEXT, WEB ENDBROWSE, WEB EXTRACT, EXTRACT WEB, EXTRACT TCPIP and EXTRACT CERTIFICATE. This enhancement removes the requirement for CICS Transaction Server to return to the QR TCB to run these commands. As a result, applications (both Java and non-Java) that use these commands should be able to obtain the performance improvements resulting from reduced TCB switching. Also threadsafe are the new Web API commands that support outbound HTTP, such as WEB OPEN,

WEB CLOSE, WEB CONVERSE and WEB PARSE URL.

transaction environment (OTE) in CICS Transaction Server Version 3.1,

The program for this transaction is	The program for this transaction is
defined THREADSAFE, API= CICSAPI.	defined THREADSAFE, API= OPENAPI.

extended API threadsafety to include the EXEC CICS WEB API and improved the interface for C/C++ applications

QR TCB

Program start

EXEC CICS threadsafe

L8 TCB QR TCB

L8 TCB

Program start

EXEC CICS threadsafe

to boost performance.

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC SQL

EXEC SQL

EXEC CICS threadsafe

EXEC SQL

EXEC SQL

EXEC RETURN

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC CICS nonthreadsafe

EXEC SQL

EXEC SQL

EXEC CICS threadsafe

EXEC SQL

EXEC SQL

EXEC RETURN

An OTE delivers improved transaction performance.

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