A Couple Important Preview Announcements

Last week IBM issued two "preview" announcements. IBM seems to be getting more open about discussing product trends and directions, and the most recent examples are CICS Transaction Server Version 4.1 for z/OS and z/OS 1.11.

CICS Transaction Server is arguably the most significant and important transaction manager and application environment for business and government. (Others might argue IMS. I would argue that both are.) The Version 4.1 preview announcement is fascinating. Atom feeds from CICS? Java 6? PHP? Yes, really. But what I find particularly refreshing is that IBM plans to make a beta version of CICS Transaction Server Version 4.1 for z/OS openly available for public Internet download starting sometime this month, and there's no charge for the beta. How about giving it a spin?

Most people already understand and appreciate z/OS's famous reliability characteristics. But now IBM is talking up z/OS 1.11's "failure avoidance" characteristics, the ability for the operating system to keep the operators (and their users) out of trouble. ("Dave, are you sure you want to do that?") IBM is also boldly claiming that customers can move to z/OS 1.11, enjoy the new functions, and consume no more (and probably less) CPU. Nobody else in the operating system business seems so focused on performance improvements, so that too is refreshing.

CICS TS 4.1 becomes generally available in the second or third quarter, and z/OS 1.11 becomes generally available in September.

by Timothy Sipples March 2, 2009
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