Overview of the IMS Universal Database resource adapter

The IMS Universal Database resource adapter is based on the Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Connector Architecture (JCA) 1.6 standard. The purpose of the JCA is to connect Enterprise Information Systems (EISs), such as IMS, into the Java EE platform. JCA provides a number of services that are managed by a Java EE application server. These services include security credential management, connection pooling, and transaction management.

These services are provided by means of system level contracts between the IMS Universal Database resource adapter and the Java EE application server, without the need for additional coding by the application programmer.

The JCA specification defines a programming interface called the Common Client Interface (CCI). This interface is used to communicate with any EIS. The IMS Universal Database resource adapter implements the CCI for interactions with IMS databases. The CCI interfaces for the IMS Universal Database resource adapter are in the com.ibm.ims.db.cci package. The CCI implementation provided by IMS allows applications to make either SQL or DL/I calls to access the IMS database.

In addition to the CCI interface provided by the IMS Universal Database resource adapter, you can also write JDBC applications to access your IMS data from a managed environment, while leveraging the Java EE services provided by the application server. This capability is provided by the IMS Universal JCA/JDBC driver version of the IMS Universal Database resource adapter. The IMS Universal JCA/JDBC driver is based on the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Connector Architecture (JCA) 1.6 and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) 4.0 standard.

The IMS Universal Database resource adapter communicates with IMS Connect as the TCP/IP endpoint to access IMS.

Preparing to write a Java application with the IMS Universal drivers

Java application programs that use the IMS Universal drivers require the Java Development Kit (JDK) 7.0. Java programs that run in JMP and JBP regions require JDK 7.0 or later. Java application programs that use the IMS Universal drivers must have access to database metadata in order to interact with IMS databases. This metadata can either be accessed directly in the IMS catalog database or it can be generated as a Java metadata class with the IMS Enterprise Suite Explorer for Development.