SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FACILITATING XML ENABLED IMS TRANSACTIONS

• US 20080183879A1
• Filed: 04/07/2008
• Published: 07/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Huyah, Bill T., Haller, Daniel M., Hung, Jenny C., Ho, Shyh-Mei F., Kuo, Steve T., Hughes, Gerald D.
• Granted Patent: US 8,190,775 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/228
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion

Abstract

A system for facilitating XML enable IMS transactions includes a generic XML processor inside an IMS connect program to facilitate any TCP/IP clients, including WebSphere and non-WebSphere, to send and receive XML documents to and from existing IMS transaction business logic. Translations between XML documents and IMS transaction message data structures occur within the IMS connect program under an XML task to parse and transform XML requests and responses. Further, the generic XML processor within the IMS connect program can provide data translation for both non-formatted and formatted IMS transactional messages in XML.

Claims

1. A system to facilitate extensible markup language (XML) enabled information management system (IMS) transactions, the system comprising:

a mainframe server that includes a digital processing apparatus and memory accessible to the digital processing apparatus, the memory including;

at least one IMS connect program; and

at least one IMS application program responsive to the at least one IMS connect program;

wherein the at least one IMS connect program includes logic to receive an XML input request from a user computer, wherein the user computer is associated with a roll-your-own (RYO) client that provides software to access the IMS connect program independent of a web server associated with the mainframe server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one IMS connect program includes at least one of an XML processor, an XML initialization routine, an XML adapter routine, an XML terminator routine, or any combination thereof.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the at least one IMS connect program includes at least one XML processor that includes at least one XML server and at least one queue header.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the at least one XML server is adapted to invoke the XML initialization routine, the XML adapter routine, the XML terminator routine, or any combination thereof.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the XML adapter routine is adapted to invoke a PL/I transformer, a COBOL transformer, a message format services (MFS) transformer, a high level assembler (HLSAM) transformer, a roll-your-own (RYO) transformer, or any combination thereof.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the mainframe server includes an XML metadata interchange (XMI) repository that is adapted to communicate with the PL/I transformer, the COBOL transformer, the C transformer, the MFS transformer, the HLSAM transformer, or the RYO transformer.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the at least one IMS connect program includes logic to:

transmit the XML input request to the at least one queue header;

retrieve an XML input request control block from the at least one queue header;

invoke the XML adapter routine;

invoke a specified data transformer;

parse and translate the XML input request to create an input request byte array; and

transmit the input request byte array to the at least one IMS application program.

9. The system of claim 3, wherein the at least one IMS connect program includes logic to:

receive an output response byte array from the at least one IMS application program;

transmit the output response byte array to the at least one queue header;

parse and translate the output response byte array to create an XML output response; and

transmit the XML output response to the user computer via a communication path that is independent of the web server associated with the mainframe server.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the output response byte array is at least partially based on the input response byte array.

8. The system of claim 8, wherein the specified data transformer is the RYO transformer and wherein the RYO transformer is provided by the RYO client associated with the XML input request.

11. A method of facilitating extensible markup language (XML) enabled information management system (IMS) transactions, comprising:

receiving a first XML input request at an IMS connect program from a first user computer via a first communication path; and

receiving a second XML input request at the IMS connect program from a second user computer via a second communication path, wherein the second communication path is independent of the first communication path.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first communication path includes a web server and the second communication path does not include a web server.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

transmitting the first XML input request to a first queue header included in an XML processor of the IMS connect program; and

transmitting the second XML input request to the first queue header or to a second queue header included in the XML processor.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

retrieving a first XML input request control block from the first queue header;

invoking a transformer to parse and translate the first XML input request;

retrieving a second XML input request control block from the first queue header or the second queue header; and

invoking the transformer to parse and translate the second XML input request.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the transformer includes a first transformer when an IMS application program is associated with a first application language and the transformer includes a second transformer when the IMS application program is associated with a second application language.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

creating a first input request byte array based on the first XML input request within the IMS connect program;

creating a second input request byte array based on the second XML input request within the IMS connect program; and

transmitting the first input request byte array and the second input request byte array from the IMS connect program to an IMS application program.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving a first output response byte array at the IMS connect program from the IMS application program;

receiving a second output response byte array at the IMS connect program from the IMS application program; and

invoking the transformer to transform the first output response byte array to a first XML output response and to transform the second output response byte array to a second XML output response.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

transmitting the first XML output response to the first user computer via the first communication path; and

transmitting the second XML output response to the second user computer via the second communication path.