ExploreMVS
System Overview
BACKGROUND
OS/390 and Unix Operating System User Interfaces
The OS/390 system is composed of two separate operating environments -- MVS and Unix. Each environment has its own file system, command structure and user interface.
Both MVS and Unix provide a basic command line user interface. The MVS file system is accessed through TSO (Time Sharing Option) while the Unix file system is accessed through the Open Edition or Unix System Services shell.
The commands used to move, copy, edit, and print files are completely different in the two environments. The command prompt user interface is like the outmoded DOS user interface in the PC environment. The user is presented with a screen containing a command line. The user must know the names and formats of the commands accepted by the command processor and the names of the files and directories that the commands manipulate. He must learn different commands, to perform the same functions, for each file system. Typing errors, syntax errors, and format errors waste a great deal of the user’s time in this environment.
The command prompt user interface requires a person with a great deal of training and experience in order to be productive. The basic file management and job management related tasks that most technical staff have to perform are not basic or easy in the command prompt environment.
The Interactive System Productivity Facility (ISPF) was added to sit on top of TSO to provide visual prompts to the user. This system is based on a set of panels that show menus of functions/commands that the user can choose to perform his work. Selection of menu items causes other menus to display or leads to forms that the user fills out. These forms will then be converted to commands by the ISPF system to execute the user’s tasks.
The visual clues provided by ISPF were a great improvement on the command line interface of TSO. However, ISPF generates a 3270 screen where choices and commands must be typed and the screens generated by ISPF are rather inflexible. The training requirements to become adept at utilizing ISPF features and capabilities are quite large.
Visual Tools and the Graphical User Interface
The Windows revolution brought about by the Apple PC followed by Microsoft’s Windows operating system changed the concept of a user interface.
The graphical user interface introduced by windowing technology provided a means for non-technical or less computer trained people to make use of the computer. The user is provided a set of visual objects that help identify the tasks that can be performed by interacting with the objects.
The graphical user interface implemented an “Object – Action” paradigm. The user chooses an object by clicking his mouse button on it. He then selects an action to be performed on that object via a menu item. This approach freed the user from endless memorization of technical information pertaining to commands and their formats and to a great degree the typing of information into forms.
Most activities have been implemented by “Point and Click” and “Drag and Drop” technology that requires no manual data entry by the user. This reduces the typing errors that can wreak havoc in a command prompt environment.
Web Browsers
The next great leap in technology came with the introduction of Web browsers and access to the Internet. We now have Windows technology married to communications thereby providing easy access to data anywhere in the world. Web servers and Web sites now provide the means of providing easy access to information and the Web browsers provide the means of displaying this data and interacting with this data in a consistent and easy manner.
ExploreMVS
A Web Browser Interface into the OS390 and Unix Environments
A new web browser interface into the OS390 and Unix environments is introduced with ExploreMVS which has been designed to take advantage of advances in technology to provide a uniform means of performing file management and job management tasks in the OS/390 environment.
ExploreMVS is designed to make the basic tasks of file and data manipulation, and job submission and review, simple and consistent across the varied environments within OS/390. ExploreMVS brings “Point and Click” and “Drag and Drop” techniques to OS/390 in order to simplify the operations required for file management and job management tasks.
ExploreMVS brings to OS/390 the familiar windows and web user interface that new staff already knows how to use. This minimizes the training requirement and allows new staff to be productive in the OS/390 environment almost immediately.
With ExploreMVS, the complexity of interacting with OS/390 is reduced and technical training is minimized. For example, college graduates going into the Information Technology area are already conversant with Windows technology, and web browsers in particular. Very few graduates are being trained in OS/390 technology. As a result data centers have to provide OS/390 training. It is not unusual for new workers to be unproductive for the first six months to a year, and even longer, from their hire date. Much of this training is reduced or eliminated with ExploreMVS.
ExploreMVS allows new workers to perform useful work while they learn OS/390 technology and puts the focus on what tasks need to be performed rather than how the tasks are to be performed. It is the “how” things work in an OS/390 environment that requires a long time to learn.
ExploreMVS enables the data center to see an immediate return on their investment because productive work is accomplished, with minimal chance for errors, while the long-term process of training continues.
Benefits
Some of the important benefits of ExploreMVS can be summarized as follows:
· Provides a graphical user interface based on the “Point and Click “ and “Drag and Drop” paradigm. This provides a friendly user interface that requires a relatively small amount of training to gain a high level of proficiency in executing OS/390 tasks.
· Implements a thin client approach, meaning that the server is the repository of the code that implements the system. The client PC requires a Java enabled web browser and the Java run time files which is freely available on the internet from Sun Microsystems web site. There is only one copy of the system and therefore it is more easily managed than a distributed client server application.
· Provides any number of ExploreMVS sessions to be established concurrently to display different facets of the OS/390 environment. ExploreMVS is not a 3270 application and does not require a TSO session with the host. The same user ID and password can be used in each ExploreMVS window. This feature helps lighten the load on heavily loaded operating systems by not creating a TSO session for each ExploreMVS session. ExploreMVS is only connected to the server when the user requests an OS/390 object that is not already available at the client site.
· Provides the same look and feel and processing capabilities to all files in the OS/390 environment. You do not need a different application for MVS and Unix and for DB2 access. This uniformity minimizes the learning process required to become proficient in executing OS/390 tasks.
How it works
ExploreMVS provides a single visual representation for all data in OS/390 and hides the complexities of having two different file systems and a relational data base system (DB2) in the OS390/Unix environment.
The system uses a tree structure to represent MVS data sets, Unix files and directories, and DB2 tables. The user simply clicks the tree structure to explore the different file structures in order to expose the names of data sets, files, directories and DB2 tables. Once the tree exposes the directory, data set, or table, task related activity commences. The user does not need to understand the differences between the Unix file system and the MVS data set schemes or DB2 architecture to perform useful work on these objects.
The four windows below show examples of ExploreMVS displaying files, data sets and DB2 tables. The first window shows the files in the Unix directory “/u/exploremvs”. The left hand side of the window shows the Unix directory structure (HFS stands for the Hierarchical File System). The right hand side of the display shows the files in that directory along with the file attributes.
The next display shows an MVS data set structure that looks like the above Unix file display. The tree diagram on the left is similar to the Unix tree diagram. However the table now displays information that is pertinent to MVS data sets. The user can easily determine what types of files are being displayed and can manipulate them using the same methods.
The user interface into the two file systems provides for the selection of directories, high level qualifiers, files and data sets and then perform copy, move, delete, replace, or file creation functions. These operations can be performed via drag and drop, copy and paste, or fill out a form techniques. This flexibility is provided to allow users to choose the method they feel most comfortable using. Jobs contained in selected files may be submitted for execution through the OS/390 job entry subsystem. The menus in the user interface provide commands that allow the user to view job output and job status and delete jobs from the hold queue. Files can be opened for editing by clicking on the tool bar “Open” button, TSO and Unix commands may be executed from a command window and messages can be sent to other users via a messaging window. These and many more functions can be accessed from the user interface menu bar commands and tool bar buttons.
The ExploreMVS system allows the user to explore the OS/390 DB2 system in the same way the user can explore the OS/390 file systems. The following two windows show how ExploreMVS displays information about tables and then a display of the contents of a table. The user selects a table or view from the tree in right hand portion of the display. The user can display all the information in the selected table by clicking the “Select” button in the tool bar. He can obtain the column definitions for that table by clicking the “Columns” button, generate a sample output of the table by clicking the “Sample” button (the first 21 rows), or create a query to display a subset of the table by clicking the “Query” button. The discovery of information in DB2 tables is no more difficult than clicking the mouse button on a DB2 object and clicking a command.
By clicking the table named “PRODUCTS” above then clicking the “Select” button on the tool bar, the user requests the system to display the contents of the “PRODUCTS” table.
The above window provides the user a capability to edit and update the data, insert new rows of information and delete unwanted rows. The data displayed in the table can be converted to comma delimited text format and saved in a file. The file then can be used as input to a spreadsheet or a PC data base program.
System Customization, Security, and Administration
ExploreMVS provides a number of features that address customization, security, accounting and system administration concerns.
The services provided by ExploreMVS are selectable through a set of configuration parameters. For example, the data center may refuse to allow TSO or Unix command processing by ExploreMVS users or allow processing but only by a selected set of users. A great deal of flexibility is provided within the system to control what services are to be used, who will be allowed to use them and in some cases how the service is to be performed.
Security may be controlled through the use of TSO userids for any service provided by ExploreMVS. The data center may also implement a java program that could validate users on information other than userid. For example the program could check for valid accounting information or restrict access by internet address.
ExploreMVS has the capability to generate accounting information and record this information into files that are stored in a directory within Unix System Services. The data is recorded for each user session and contains statistics about the number of communication events, length of data communicated between the client and server, and the duration of connect time to pass this information back and forth. The data center can use this information to charge network usage back to ExploreMVS users.
ExploreMVS allows one user to be designated as the system administrator. This person will have special capabilities that allow him to monitor all user activity, broadcast messages to all users, release files back to available status, and cancel user sessions.
The major design goal of ExploreMVS is to provide uniform, easy to use methods for carrying out common file and job management tasks in the OS/390 operating system environment. This will provide increased productivity of data center staff and minimize training requirements. The same concept can be extended to include other operating system environments. The current system will be able to provide the same services to any Unix or Linux operating system that it currently provides for OS/390 Unix System services. This facility will be a great benefit to data centers that use multiple operating systems.