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The benefit of having CICS support COBOL AMODE64 is to permit a 4gig DB2 database with thousands of rows to be loaded as table entries into a 'flat' table in AMODE64 storage at PLT time at cics startup. The address of this large table could be anchored in a pre-determined name of a Temp Storage queue. The Cobol program could then do an EXEC CICS READQ TS to obtain the stored address of this large table and then use it to address an 01 DATANAME. (like a dsect) in the cobol program's LINKAGE SECTION to format a table entry. . Some, or all, of the rows could be read by a cobol perform loop that is incrementing an index subscript to progress through the entries of the table. The desired values from each table entry can be accumulated as needed for the application logic. We have millions of daily tasks currently reading some, or all, of the DB2 table's rows that never change during cics execution. Being able to permit access to the thousands of entries in an in-memory table in AMODE64 storage would eliminate the path length of going through thousands of DB2 requests per task. Hence, many cpu cycles could be saved.
The top manager of CICS development said that AMODE 31 is everywhere in the bowels of CICS, and the product would need almost a complete rewrite to support AMODE 64 COBOL.
COBOL is AMODE64 capable and became initially available in COBOL V6.3 , and recently enhanced in COBOL V6.4 for interoperability with AMODE31 programs.
IBM’s latest cics release, CICS TS 6.1, will STILL NOT support COBOL AMODE64.
So, CICS non-LE assembler interface programs would currently be needed to build/utilize large tables of data in above-the-bar storage in cics.
IBM CICS TS 6.1 manual states
64-bit addressing mode is not supported for COBOL programs.
CICS does not support 64-bit residency mode (RMODE(64)) and treats any RMODE(64) programs as RMODE(31). That is, RMODE(64) programs are loaded into 31-bit (above-the-line) storage, not 64-bit (above-the-bar) storage.
CICS provides above the bar storage allocations in the form of containers which reside above the bar. A PUT CONTAINER requests results in data being stored in the named container above the bar. Data is copied into 31bit storage when accessed by an application using a GET CONTAINER command.
We also support non-LE assembler amode(64) applications who can use PUT64 CONTAINER and GET64 CONTAINER commands to store and retrieve data direct to and from 64bit storage. These amode 64 non le assembler programs can interoperate with amode31 cobol programs via EXEC CICS LINK.