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. � <br /> MANAGEMENT SERVICES DEPARTMENT <br /> MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS DIVISION <br /> Memorandum No. 2000-15 <br /> November 1, 2000 <br /> MEMORANDUM FOR: Honorable Mayor and City Council <br /> FROM: Stephen L. Gar , City Manager <br /> David S. Johnst , Manager, MIS Division� <br /> SUBJECT: Purchase of Upgraded Software <br /> PURPOSE: This memorandum is provided to secure Council approval for payment of the <br /> invoice attached as Enclosure 1, in the amount of$5880.00, for the purchase of upgraded CICS <br /> Transaction Processor software for the IBM mainframe computer. <br /> BACKGROUND: The city's financial management software runs in the IBM VSE-ESA <br /> environment, a medium-scale mainframe computer system. In order to provide "traffic control" <br /> for a large number of simultaneous users, the system employs CICS (Customer Information <br /> Control System), which is an online transaction processing program from IBM that,together with <br /> COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language)programming language, forms the most <br /> common set of tools for building customer transaction applications in the world of large <br /> enterprise mainframe computing. Using the programming interface provided by CICS, our � <br /> programmers write programs that communicate with online users and read from or write to <br /> accounting, customer, and other records (orders, inventory figures, customer data, and so forth) <br /> in the mainframe database using CICS facilities rather than the mainframe's more cumbersome, <br /> less structured access methods directly. CICS' function is to ensure that transactions are <br /> sequenced in the proper order and are completed; if not, CICS will "undo"partly completed <br /> transactions so that the integrity of our financial data records is maintained. <br /> IBM has recently upgraded CICS to a new release version, correcting some operating problems <br /> with the old version and adding new capabilities, especially in the area of support for e-business. <br /> The older version currently in use on our system will no longer be supported by IBM. We are <br /> thus required to purchase this new version to maintain compatibility between our mainframe <br /> operating system software and the transaction processor. This expenditure was foreseen and is <br /> provided for in the MIS Capital (Fund 68) annual budget projection. <br /> RECOMMENDATION: That Council approve the resolution at Enclosure 2, authorizing the <br /> payment of the IBM invoice. <br /> � Staff will be available at the meeting to answer any questions that you may have. <br /> 2 Encl <br />