IBM CICS Transaction Server Reviews & Product Details

CICS is a family of mixed-language application servers that provide online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS and z/VSE. CICS family products are designed as middleware and support rapid, high-volume online transaction processing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

User Interface is too outdated but still being the most efficient and reliable Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Flexibility, languages supported, the interfaces, the network management, the task management, the data integrity features, the security features Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

IPIC CICS-TO-CICS communications doesn't fully replace XM/IRC and ISC/LU62 communication protocols Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The most valuable features of this solution are speed, resiliency, and mixed language support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not easy maintenance .

I'd like to be more flexible in terms of maintenance deployment." Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Options to navigate between screens using PF keys,

Easy to make changes in backend cobol or pl1 modules,

It has option to hold data in TSQ or TDQ which makes easy to transfer data between programs

Backend BMS maps are easy to read on which fields are located where as it just uses position horizontally and vertically.

DFHCOMMAREA has variety of use in programs which makes developers job easy and standard Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CICS modules can’t be reused in batch has it has linkage section defined specifically to use for online modules

Downtime and reload of all the screens need specialists

Error message handling additional pop up is complex logic compared to other technologies Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Very useful to run your Mainframe application on online mode using BMS macros. Receive output instantly. For eg: ATM, Railway ticket booking etc Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When you develop new CICS program from scratch, it required more setup and adding resources in different entries like PCP,PCT, RCT etc. So you can do unit testing for your program program only all the setup completed. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

IBM CICS is basically a medium through which you can make use of data stored on Mainframes which usually is not accessible because you need COBOL language for that. IBM CICS helps you to connect to mainframes with a java or .net or any other language which the front end supports.

We have made use of this product extensively because some of our clients were adamant that they don't want to move the data from Mainframes. So we shifted towards CICS and we were pleasantly surprised by the speed of the transaction, the volume it can support and high availability and ofcourse no hacking is possible because its Mainframes after all, most secured systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Establishing the initial connection can be challenging task if you are doing it for the first time because there are a lot of things which you need to get absolutely right.

There arent a lot of experienced and knowledgeable resources available in market who are good in Mainframes and COBOL or assembly language. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Customer Information Control System more commonly knows as CICS is a proprietary product developed by IBM. It has been the bridge between mainframes and the latest technologies which want to leverage mainframes. CICS allows the developers to develop and execute online services in a Multiple Virtual Storage(MVS) controlled environment. CICS is an online system you can say where the job submitted are processes immediately and not kept in a buffer or spool.

CICS is a transaction processing system which can take millions of requests and still process them at wire speed. We have been using CICS for quite a while now and since our data was present on the mainframes and our application is java based. We decided to use CICS to bridge the gap for the two and it has worked really well for us as well.

We had to hire a resource though who understands the COBOL and Assembler language and then we made him work with the MQ person to get this whole thing working. IBM is really supportive as well in the beginning when we are establishing the connectivity for the first time. Slowly we have also learned a lot about CICS and where it should be used and how powerful it is. It is capable of handling massive transaction volumes without ever going down or slowing. The security provided by the mainframes is the best in the world. They have also been making a lot of changes in the CICS system and making it easier for even new people to start using it with a basic understanding of the tool. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CICS has been a wonderful experience for us but in the start finding a resource who is well versed in COBOL and Assembler language, that was really tough. The learning curve associated with it is quite steep as well if you want to work on it on daily basis. Abend and Error handling needs to be worked on a lot to make it easier to find the issue. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

IBM CICS is a proprietary product from IBM which provides online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS. It is essentially a bridge between modern technology applications such as Java, .Net, C# to communicate with data stored on mainframes.

The speed, security, and reliability are top of the line since mainframes are the most secure system ever. So, the backend in these cases usually is the Mainframes and since you can directly talk to mainframes, IBM made this transaction management system which makes it accessible of any application to converse with mainframes because a lot of applications still have their data present on mainframes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Well, this isn't as easy as it sounds because making the initial connection to the mainframes is a tough nut to crack because of all the security parameters which you should possess before connecting to mainframes.

Secondly finding people with that kind of a skill set is very rare because you can make changes at the front end but if you need something to be changed in COBOL at mainframes end then you might be in trouble. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

IBM CICS is middleware designed to support rapid, high-volume online transaction processing. It is essentially a collection of mixed language application servers that supports online transaction management and connectivity for applications on IBM mainframe systems under z/OS. It helps you to interact with Mainframes, even if your application is not written in Cobol. It has many connectors and can support almost any language which you are working on. You can make a call to IBM Mainframes through CICS and fetch the data as per the requirement of your applications through Java language or MQ or .Net or any other language which you are working on. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The main thing which bothers me is that when we face an error and have to debug from the logs, that is a very cumbersome process. The cost associated with using IBM CICS and Mainframes is pretty substantial since these are legacy systems and their maintenance require a lot of resources. IBM is always there to help you out but again finding good resources to hire and train in your organization is going to be a challenge. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The people I worked with were the best around, I spent 20 years making the green screens web based, unfortunately assembler and cobol progammers are hard to come by. Those that know what they are doing can do it really well, and facilitate Java guys like me to make the most of things. Very stable in a highly controlled environment (assuming you have an operations team on hand 24/7, most large companies do). In my 20 years depending on it, I don't recall it ever going down, Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

lack of talented people , IBM support is great if you can narrow down the problem for them, they work 24/7 to help you in a crisis. Probably the cost would prohibit most companies from using it, as an employee, that's not my issue, it really is a workhorse that can handle anything. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.