Overview of administrative activities
To administer an online IMS system, you must design an IMS online system, establish operating procedures that meet application requirements, maintain a production system that is responsive to end users, and integrate new applications or major design changes into the current system.
To meet these responsibilities, you must coordinate many activities that occur during an application development cycle. Performance of these activities results in:
- Documentation of the IMS network
- Specifications for IMS system definition and execution control parameters
- Procedural controls for operation
- Strategies for monitoring and audit trails
After entry into production mode, your ongoing activities support:
- Auditing operations and end user service
- Monitoring and gathering production statistics
- Establishing procedures to control changes to the online system design
- Testing the online system after application and IMS changes
The following figure is an overview of the administration activities. The activities in the first column of the figure take place during the design phase, the second column's activities occur during development of application code, and those in the third column occur during test. The vertical center line marks the transition to production mode.
Before the start of production mode, administration activities lead to two major activities:
- Generating the system and preparing JCL (job control language)
- Developing operations procedures
The items to the right of the center line in the figure reflect the ongoing system administration activities. The column headed by PRODUCTION emphasizes awareness of the day-to-day operation and performance of the system. The next column's activities are concerned with maintenance. Minor application design changes, problem resolution, and any IMS maintenance are included in this category. The column on the far right identifies the activities needed to integrate additional applications or implement an application package. For a major addition, activities are similar to those on the left-hand side of the figure. Other design changes that do not involve terminal or network modifications can be handled without shutting down the IMS. For these simple design changes, the associated activities lead to a revision of operating procedures in maintenance mode.
After startup, revisions of IMS system definition and operating procedures become key activities. In this context, you might decide to change applications during online operation. The interpretation of system performance then becomes an important activity, supported by monitoring and performance analysis.
Each row in the figure represents a set of activities, each having its own characteristics:
- Analyzing user requirements involves examining the application documentation for the IMS function required and the expected workload.
- Collecting online requirements concerns specifications for IMS system definition, system data set allocation, and initial JCL.
- Preparing the IMS network involves interaction with system and network generation activities.
- Establishing security procedures encompasses the design and implementation of a security strategy.
- Developing an operations plan produces operations control documents and provides for audit of the control of production cycles.
- Forming a monitoring strategy results in monitoring the system and gathering performance data.
- Establishing criteria for performance leads to performance analysis and tuning activities.
Related reading: This publication does not address the detailed planning needed to establish operating procedures. For information on establishing operating procedures, see IMS Version 15.4 Operations and Automation.