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Status Not under consideration
Categories General DB
Created by Guest
Created on Sep 13, 2018

Allow definition of fields in the filler segment of an IMS db without required DBR for catalog

We currently define segments in a Data Base Definition (DBD), along with a key field. The remaining segment length does not have data fields defined in the DBD. We define data fields in external copybooks. Therefore, there is no outage of the database when a data field is defined, but an update to the external copybook is made and COBOL programs are recompiled.

Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Mar 19, 2019

    Hi Pat,
    Thank you for your interest in keeping IMS a vital and successful product. Software development has continuously evolved during IMS's lifetime, and so has IMS itself. We have kept pace with, adopted, and implemented many industry standard best practices within our organization, including Continuous Delivery, Design Thinking, and Agile.

    When choosing new features to add from the list of requirements in our backlog, we assess which will bring the most value to as many clients as possible and prioritize those.

    At this time, we are rejecting RFE 124762 because as we discussed in our weekly status meeting, you can define fields with FIELD EXTERNALNAME= in the DBD without an outage of the database. Also, we are investigating if it is possible to allow FIELD NAME= definitions without an outage of the database. I will inform you during our status meetings if we achieve that.

    We appreciate your input to IMS, and we hope that you will continue to submit ideas for improvements as customer feedback is a key component to shaping the future direction of IMS.

    Thank you.
    Sincerely,
    Deepak Kohli - deepakk@us.ibm.com