Customer Information Control System(CICS)

IBM’s Customer Information Control System (CICS) is  an on-line teleprocessing system developed by IBM. By providing a sophisticated control and service database/data communication system, the application developer can concentrate on fulfilling specific business needs rather than on communication and internal system details. CICS allows data to be transmitted from the terminal to the host computer, have the data processed, access files/databases, and then have data to be transmitted from the terminal to the host computer, have the data processed, access files/databases, and then have data transmitted back to the terminal. To accomplish that, CICS uses a telecommunication package such as VTAM or TCAM and various file access methods: VSAM, DL/1, DB2, etc.

The latest release CICS/ESA is Release 3.3.

Some of the new functionality includes:

1.  Expanded features for the system programmer
2. Improved above the line storage utilization
3. New options for many CICS commands
4. Improved cross-platform communication facilities

Functionality

 CICS provides the following support:

 Data Communications

•  An interface between the terminal and printers with CICS via a telecommunication access method (TCAM or VTAM).
• Multi Region Operation(MRO), through which more than one CICS region of a system can communicate
• Intersystem Communication (ISC), through which one CICS region of a system can communicate with other CICS regions in other systems

 

Application Programming

•  Interfaces with programming languages such as COBOL and Assembler
• Command level translator
• An Execution Diagnostic Facility (EDF) 
• A Command Interpreter

 

Data Handling

• An interface with database access methods such as DB2, DL/1, and VSAM
•  An interface with error checking and reporting facilities

 Terminology:

 CICS has its own language. Some of the language abbreviations of CICS are:

                 SIT                         System Initialization Table

                PCT                       Program Control Table

                PPT                        Program Processing Table

                TCT                       Terminal Control Table

                FCT                        File Control Table

                TCP                       Terminal Control Program

                TCTUA                 Terminal Control Terminal User Area

                DCT                       Destination Control Table

                TDQ                      Transient Data Queue

                EIP                         Execution Interface Program

                FCP                        File Control Program

                ICP                         Interval Control Program

                KCT                       Task Control Program

                PCP                        Program Control Program

                SCP                        Storage Control Program

                TCA                       Task Control Area

                TCTTE                 Terminal Control Table Terminal Entry

                TSQ                       Temporary Storage Queue

                TWA                     Task Work Area

                AID                        Attention Identifier

                CWA                     Common Work Area

                MRO                      Multi Region Operation

                QID                       Queue Identifier

Popularity: unranked [?]

Related interview questions

• CICS interview Questions Part – X
• CICS interview Questions Part – I
• CICS interview Questions Part – XI
• CICS interview Questions Part – VI
• CICS interview Questions Part – III