IMS command routing interfaces

The IMS Command Control Facility command driver must communicate across an appropriate interface when it issues commands to an IMS server.

IMS Command Control Facility supports the following interfaces to route IMS commands:

APPC/IMS

APPC/IMS is a communication protocol that allows IMS Command Control Facility to communicate directly with IMS. With this interface, IMS Command Control Facility can issue IMS commands and receive responses from those commands.

IMS Operations Manager (OM)

IMS Operations Manager is an optional component of the IMS base product. IMS Operations Manager (OM) communicates with Structured Call Interface (SCI) address spaces on each LPAR in the sysplex. IMS Command Control Facility can pass IMS commands to the SCI address space on the LPAR where the TSO user or batch job is running. IMS OM and SCI address spaces communicate through XCF to process an IMS command. The command response is then routed back to IMS Command Control Facility to be returned to the user.

Remote STC

The remote STC process uses APPC/MVS to pass IMS commands from the requesting TSO user or batch job to an APPC task on the same LPAR where IMS is running. The APPC task then connects to that IMS system as a BMP, and uses IMS Issue Command (ICMD) and Retrieve Command (RCMD) DL/I calls to process an IMS command to retrieve the command output.

Local BMP

If an IMS Command Control Facility TSO user or batch job is running on the same LPAR that IMS is running on, the TSO user or batch job can dynamically connect to the IMS system as a BMP. While dynamically connected, it can use the IMS Issue Command (ICMD) and Retrieve Command (RCMD) DL/I calls to process an IMS command to retrieve the command output.

Some of the interfaces are dependent on the IMS region type or IMS configuration. For example, a DBCTL region, or a DB/DC region that is configured with APPC=N, cannot use the APPC/IMS interface to issue commands.