Question

IBM ZOS FTP Best Practices

Asked by: ttist25

Hey there,

I'm about to start work on a project that will export data from an IBM DB2 dataset and use that data to populate a MSSQL DB.

We have created a small  COBOL program to extract this data to delimited format in the past and will probably use something similar for this task.

I'm thinking about using FTP to transfer the data to our MSSQL backend but I'm a little sketchy on the details of how that is normally accomplished due to my infamiliarity of ZOS.

Is there a utility in zos that allows automated connection and transfer to an FTP server?  What would be the normal way to accomplish the transfer from zos to the SQL server?

Just a high level explanation should suffice.  We will get into details later on.

TIA!

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-07-07 at 18:28:08ID24551674
Topic

MainFrame Operating Systems

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
4

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Is there any erperts page for COBOL?
    Is there any erperts page for COBOL?
  2. connecting cobol and sql server !
    Dear sir my working environment is windows NT 4.0 and i have microsoft cobol compiler of version 2.20 i have microsoft access2000,sql server 7,2000 and oracle 7 personal edition for windows NT and db2 udb 7.2 personal edition for windows NT my question is i need to connect...
  3. Converting COBOL Program  to DB2 Stored Procedures
    Hi, We have many COBOL programs on IBM mainframe, we are planning to convert them to DB2 stored procedure. is there any tools to conver this. Is there any performance and easy mainitenance benifit?.
  4. COBOL QUESTION - DETECT IF FILE EXISTS
    I want to write a COBOL program (MAINFRAME IBM OS390) that will loop continuously until a file is found. How can this be done? I am having a problem with defining this file in the JCL because JCL is expecting the file even before the job executes. Ive defined the file in the ...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: giltjrPosted on 2009-07-08 at 04:40:30ID: 24802609

z/OS has ftp client that you can run in batch.  The simplest way to use it would be to have JOB setup something like:

//S01OF01 EXEC PGM=FTP,REGION=4096K        
//SYSPRINT DD SYSOUT=*                    
//OUTPUT   DD SYSOUT=*                    
//INPUT    DD *                            
10.1.1.1  (exit                            
userid                                    
password                                  
put 'MAINFRAME.FILE.NAME' +                
     pcfile.name                          
quit                                      
/*                                        



 

by: giltjrPosted on 2009-07-08 at 04:45:29ID: 24802644

Also, not sure if you want to look into alternatives, but:

The ftp server on z/OS has a "connection" to DB2.  I have not used it, but based on the doc, from the SQL server you could login to the ftp server on z/OS and then issue a "get mainframe.file.name pc.filename" where the data set "mainframe.file.name" contains SQL select statments and the ftp server will pass the select to DB2, which will extract the data, pass it back to the ftp server, which when then pass it back to the client and put the results in "pc.filename".

Also, you can get DB2 client and setup DB2 as a ODBC data source and from the SQL server write a program that extracts from DB2 and inserts into MQSQL server.  I'm not 100% sure but at one time I thought that MS was going to make MSSQL support DRDA, which is the standard for DB2 data bases to talk to each other over a network.  

 

by: ttist25Posted on 2009-07-09 at 04:33:23ID: 24812491

Thanks a bunch.  That's exactly what I was looking for.  

I have considered a connector from MSSQL to DB2 but I haven't read much about success with that.

I think automating our COBOL program and then running FTP in a batch as you suggest will probably be the best way.

Thanks again.

 

by: giltjrPosted on 2009-07-09 at 07:15:04ID: 24813870

If you want more error checking or more functionality you can also call ftp from a REXX EXEC.  But for basic ftp you can just use what I have above.  That is basically what we use for about 2,000 jobs.

Not sure how you are checking for the presence of the file on the Window side, but since file locking in the distributed world is generally non-exsistant you may want to do:

put 'MAINFRAME.FILE.NAME' +                
     pcfile.name.tmp
rename pcfile.name.tmp pcfile.name                          
quit                                      

We had some problems where the traget system was starting  a process based on the fact that 'pcfile.name' existed and when the file was big the process would get started before the transfer was finished.  Caused all types of problems.  So we started sending to ".tm" names and then renamed to the real name.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...