BMS support levels

There are three levels of BMS support: minimum, standard, and full. Most installations use full BMS. If yours does, you can use all the features we describe in this chapter and not concern yourself with levels. If your installation uses minimum or standard BMS, you should note the features that require levels beyond yours. They are summarized here, and they are noted again whenever a facility that is not in minimum BMS is covered.

Minimum BMS

Minimum BMS supports all the basic functions for 3270 terminals, including everything described in our example and in the discussion of simple mapped output and mapped input.

Note:
Minimum BMS has a substantially shorter path length than standard or full BMS. It is included in the larger versions and invoked as a kind of "fast path" on commands do not require function beyond what it provides. Specifically, it is used for SEND MAP and SEND CONTROL commands without the ACCUM, PAGING, SET, OUTPARTN, ACTPARTN, LDC, MSR, or REQID options, and for RECEIVE MAP commands, when your principal facility is a 3270 display or printer whose definition does not include outboard formatting. You can tell whether a particular BMS request used the fast path by looking at the CICS® trace table. When fast path is used, the trace table contains duplicate entries for the BMS entry and exit code.

Standard BMS

Standard BMS adds:

Standard BMS supports these terminals:

Full BMS

Full BMS is required for:

Some CICS platforms do not support all the features of BMS. Table 37 shows the approximate level of support in each, for general guidance. However, there are differences among platforms even at the same level, usually imposed by differences in execution environment. These are described in detail, by function, in CICS Family: API Structure. If your application may eventually move to another platform, or there is a chance that the end-user interface part of it may get distributed to one, you should consult that manual.

Table 37. BMS support across IBM® platforms
Platform BMS support
CICS OS/2 Minimum plus SEND TEXT of standard
CICS/400 Minimum plus SEND TEXT of standard
CICS/6000® Minimum plus SEND TEXT of standard
CICS/VSE, CICS/DOS/VS Full
CICS/ESA, CICS/MVS, CICS Transaction Server for OS/390®, CICS Transaction Server for z/OS® Full
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