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The CICS Architecture Forum - CAF |
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Overview
The "CICS Architecture Forum" (CAF) is an association of various companies
which have an interest in the development of the CICS Family architecture.
The companies participate by sending their representative to the CAF meetings,
which occur three times a year, each being three or four days.
The location of these meetings is at IBM Hursley, the IBM development centre
for CICS, in the spring and fall of each year, and at a location outside England,
primarily the USA, in the summer.
The business of these meetings is to discuss and propose technical direction for
extensions to CICS, with particular reference to its application programming
interfaces. See also the Objectives and Charter.
The architectural proposals developed by the CAF are offered to the various
development organisations, to facilitate the consistency of the syntax and
semantics of the implementation of CICS function across its many system platforms.
The implementations will develop the function in accordance with such architectural
definition, subject to their own business plans and priorities.
The existence of an architectural proposal developed by the CAF does not imply any
commitment on the part of any supplier of CICS to provide an implementation.
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Membership
The current CAF membership includes the following categories of company:
- Suppliers of CICS implementations
- Independent Software Vendors
- Customers of CICS
- Consultants
Since the work of the CAF is, by definition, technical, the participants are
individuals who have an "in-depth" understanding of one or more of the aspects of CICS.
For example, they may be CICS family architects, or CICS application programmers
or installers of CICS.
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Procedures
The meetings are conducted as a set of plenary sessions, interspersed with
working group break-out sessions. The meetings are conducted in a non-confidential
manner, that is, no company is expected to divulge anything that is confidential
to that company; and from this the reverse also follows, that is, no company
should expect to receive any information that is confidential to another
company.
The plenary sessions are used for various reasons; for example, to receive
presentations on relevant aspects of CICS architecture, to review the status
of the activities of the CAF (including feedback from the various working
groups), and. to hold discussions in the presence of all CAF meeting attendees.
Working groups are formed from subsets of the attendees, for the express
purpose of working on a relevant topic identified by the plenary session.
The participants elect to which working groups they would like to be associated,
and they are expected to remain in a group until the work of that group
is completed. The working groups are expected to endeavour to progress
their activities between the CAF meetings, by way of conference calls,
electronic communication and by use of a part of this Web Site, which is accessible
only to the members of the CAF.
In general there are only a small number in total of working groups
active at any time. Once the work of such a group is completed, then that
group is dissolved. Only two working groups are run in parallel in any
one break-out session, and after any break-out session there is a feed
back from each into the plenary, so that everyone can be kept aware of
the discussion in the working group in which they have been unable to participate.
The CAF is a collaborative activity, in which the technicalities of
the CICS architecture are debated to establish an agreed proposal. Accordingly, no
voting procedure has yet been found to be necessary.
If appropriate and practical a pre-meeting day is held which is purely
educational. This enables the participants to gain a common understanding
of some topic, not necessarily one which is part of the formal agenda.
Attendance at this educational day is optional.
The outputs and deliverables from the CAF are papers describing architecture
and interfaces. This information is made available to the development organisations,
and will be factored into the relevant implementation usually by way of
their own design change mechanisms.
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Organisational Structure
Currently the CAF only has small number of members. This is both a limitation
and a necessity. The latter is needed simply because it would be almost
impossible to conduct productive technical debate and discussion with too
many participants. However, constraining the numbers actively participating
in the meetings is not intended to inhibit those who wish to become involved
with the CAF. Therefore the CAF is partitioned into "kernel" and "interested
parties" sections.
The "kernel" members are invited to attend the meetings in person (or
send a deputy from their company). They are expected to champion and represent
the opinion of some of the "interested parties".
The "interested parties" section is not yet a reality. Representatives
from this section will receive the proceedings of the CAF meetings and
may become involved in the inter-meeting activities of the working groups.
They are encouraged to comment on the drafts of proposals and submit suggestions.
Also they may wish to choose a representative from the "kernel" section
as their champion.
Active members from the "interested parties" section may be invited
to attend a CAF meeting, or deputise for or replace representatives from
the "kernel" section.
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Contact
If you are interested in knowing more about the CICS Architecture Forum,
please contact its convenor, John Carter, at:
IBM UK Ltd,
Hursley Park,
Winchester,
Hants
SO21 2JN
UK
tele: +44 - (0)1962 816259
email: jmcarter@vnet.ibm.com
If you would like to become associated with the CAF, John will be pleased
to discuss this with you. There are no membership fees, however members
participate at their own expense and are required to agree to a set of
Terms and Conditions,</A> primarily covering the joint ownership and
use of any Intellectual Property emanating from CAF related discussions.
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