System 1032 Questions with Answers by Tym Stegner
Base System
Q: Can I indent report text without including a blank string or variable in the item list?
A: Yes. However, although you might think to use the INDENT option in the PRINT item list, INDENT works only as a qualifier for the FOLD option. Instead use the LAYOUT clause of the PRINT command to specify the starting column position of each print item; you can override the default intercolumn spacing declared by the $PRNT_COLSPC system variable.
Columns you do not specifically set are positioned at the default column separation value. Therefore, in the following PRINT command, the LAYOUT clause indents the first column ten characters and retains the default two characters between the columns.
1032> SET DS FILMS; 1032> PRINT DIRECTOR LENGTH_Of_FILM LAYOUT 10 ,,,
Director ---------------
Length of Film ---------------
1:50
2:20
ODBC Driver
Q: When I use existing procedures as stored procedures for ODBC, they do not work unless I specify input values for the Output parameters. Why?
A: System 1032 procedure parameters default to the InputOutput parameter passing mechanism. To omit the initializer for an Output parameter, you must modify the procedures parameters to include a comment that begins with ONLY OUTPUT. This tells the ODBC Driver to treat the parameter as Output-only.
After you edit a procedure you must add it into the dictionary again, to correctly pick up the parameter setting. Issue a SHOW PROCEDURE name/FULL command to display information about the procedures parameters.
Q: Dates and times aren't passed correctly in my stored procedures. What's going on?
A: SQL Date and Time data types do not map directly to the System 1032 Date, Date_Time, Time, and Time_Span data types. You can map a System 1032 DATE only to SQL TIMESTAMP. Both SQL DATE and SQL TIMESTAMP data types map to the System 1032 Date_Time data type.
In general, an output parameter's data type is determined by how the parameter is declared in the client application. A date specified as 09/10/2000, for example, is actually passed as a binary date, an SQL TIMESTAMP, in Microsoft Access and Microsoft Active Server Pages.
The closer you can setup a parameter's data type before executing the stored procedure, the more likely ODBC Driver can accept your input value.
The following table maps System 1032 Date and Date_Time parameter types to ODBC types.
Note: Output parameter precision is defined by argument so it is mapped to TimeStamp (maximum precision)
Q: Microsoft Access won't process Decimal parameters in my stored procedures. Why not?
A: Access does not directly support the Decimal data type. Access online help suggests creating a Variant whose subtype is Decimal using the CDec function. At that time, you can also set Precision and Scale properties to make your parameter match the defined procedure parameter settings.
You can display the procedure parameter settings by issuing the SHOW PROCEDURE name/FULL command in ODBC_DICTIONARY.
Customer Profile BOCES Builds a Virtual Data Warehouse with CCA Analytics: Part 1 By Marie Kelly
The case for a data warehouse
Imagine all your data about a single topic coming together seamlessly from a number of disparate systems throughout your enterprise for decision support and analysis. Furthermore, the data is cleansed and possibly even transformed or aggregated for analytical use. Finally, you provide a variety of query, reporting, data mining, and analytical tools to end-users. They can explore the data freely and answer their own questions without excessive involvement from the IT department. That's the concept of a data warehouse in a nutshell.
However, building a data warehouse isn't as simple and straightforward as the concept. Consuming a tremendous amount of programmer and financial resources, a full-blown data warehouse architecture requires the precise integration of numerous new and existing software components. As such, building a data warehouse is not a project that is lightly undertaken.
The virtues of a virtual data warehouse
Now suppose you could quickly build a virtual data warehouse as a working prototype of a data warehouse. And while you worked on the design and implementation of the data warehouse, the virtual data warehouse is up and running, fulfilling the needs of end users.
Unlike a data warehouse, the virtual data warehouse does not store data separately from the operational store. It applies appropriate business intelligence tools against views of operational data, providing the end-user with some decision support capabilities quickly and easily. And because users can satisfy most of their own information requests, the IT department - particularly of a small or mid-size company - can devote more time to the design and implementation of the data warehouse.
As one Model 204 user has discovered, the recently-released CCA Analytics product is the ideal business intelligence tool for building a virtual data warehouse.
Meet BOCES
The Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) in Syracuse, New York, provides student-oriented research data to approximately 2,500 school principals, administrators and researchers in almost every school district in the state. Every request differs; each involves vast information about any number of students and requires that results be displayed in diverse formats. Recently, despite their best efforts to keep up with the ever-growing demand, IT began to fall behind with reports. They knew they needed a data warehouse.
The Challenge at BOCES
After making the decision to build a data warehouse for their internal clients, the modestly-sized IT department at BOCES had a real challenge before them.
Choosing a business intelligence tool
Realizing that this created a no-win situation, BOCES considered an interim, virtual data warehouse solution, hoping to free up IT resources to devote to the data warehouse project. The first task was to choose a business intelligence tool that was up to the challenge of turning BOCES' operational data into a virtual data warehouse. After a brief review of popular tools, BOCES chose CCA Analytics.
Analyzing CCA Analytics
CCA Analytics relies on an indexing technology to deliver maximum performance for analytical applications. For decades, CCA's database products have used bit mapped indices, which are recognized for their superior performance in query and analytical operations. Any number of fields in the database can be indexed, resulting in the creation of an index table for each one. The practical result is that most analytical operations are executed against the key tables, never accessing the actual data records. Functions such as summaries and value distributions are completed almost instantly, even with exceedingly large databases.
Consider a database that contains name and address information for 50 million U.S. citizens. Summarizing the number of people by state takes less than a second, regardless of the number of data records, since all work is done at the index table level. The State field index table is very small, containing only 50 unique values.
For more complex queries and analyses, CCA Analytics combines index table information through the use of relational and logical operators, producing similarly fast results. In a sense, the index tables ARE the data warehouse, with the actual data records being used only when a full drill-down is required. This, of course, is completely transparent to the user, who doesn't need to worry about whether their operations are being completed at the index table or detail record level.
Back at BOCES: Success in progress
Once CCA Analytics was installed at BOCES, in two weeks they had infrequent computer users, including school principals and administrators, accessing and analyzing data on their own. As previously described, the use of the virtual data warehouse is helping the IT department design the data warehouse as users get a better sense of their information needs. They pass their requirements on, which helps the IT department design the data warehouse correctly the first time.
Coming attractions
With the enabling technology chosen, the BOCES IT team was ready to begin implementing their virtual data warehouse.
In Part 2, October 2000 edition of CCAPrint I will look at designing the virtual warehouse and accessing it. We will look at successes and evaluate what to expect at your site.
Model 204 A Better Way: SVC-Less Installation By Jim Damon
When XDM CRAM, the new cross-memory services option of the Cross Region Access Method, was released in Model 204 V4R1.1, you could then perform an entire Model 204 installation without the concomitant SVC installation. Significant operational benefits and labor saved in the installation process can be realized. The following items are no longer required:
In addition, you can enjoy the following savings:
You must still install IGCLM244 by running the CRAMINS JOB. In that job stream:
Link-editing wins the day
The installation process is much simpler, easier, faster, and less error prone. For an SVC-less installation simply link-edit the cross-memory routine provided by CCA - XMEMSVC in V4R1.1, M204XSVC in V4R2.0 - directly into the ONLINE, BATCH204, IFAM1, and IFAM4 load modules. The cross-memory code that supports XDM CRAM and IOS Branch Entry is executed inline rather than as an SVC. This code adds about 5000 bytes to each of the previous load modules. Also, you must link-edit the load modules into an APF authorized load library - a task which is already required for the non-swappable attribute, IOS Branch Entry, external security interfaces, and so on.
The relink job stream in Figure 1 links cross-memory support into an existing ONLINE load module, assumed to exist in the DD=SYSLMOD, and replace ONLINE in DD=SYSLMOD. All currently applied maintenance is preserved in the resulting load module.
Repeat this job for BATCH204, IFAM1, and IFAM4.
Chose the following link-edit statements according to your version requirements
SVC-less limitation
The single exception to an SVC-less installation is SMF reporting. New customers or customers who have never installed the SMF SVC, but who now want SMF reporting must install the two-line SVC described in the Model 204 System Manager's Guide. Once installed, it is compatible across all Model 204 releases and never requires reinstallation.
So, if you'd like to simplify the installation process in the OS/390 environment, try this approach - we think you'll like it!
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