UL/SPF

UL/SPF — User Language System Productivity Facilities — is a family of products implemented as User Language application subsystems, designed to function together in a Model 204 Online.

As of Model 204 7.5 - Fall, 2015, UL/SPF has been superceded by RKTools.

Each product in the family can be installed and run independently, or each can be installed and run as a component of the integrated UL/SPF framework. All UL/SPF products share a common "look and feel" that is modeled on IBM's ISPF facilities. UL/SPF supplants the sometimes arcane command language of Model 204, providing a highly productive full screen interface to a variety of common Model 204 functions.

UL/SPF enhances the capabilities of Model 204 and bypasses many of its restrictions, enabling the performance of routine tasks that were previously impossible or prohibitively time-consuming.

UL/SPF components

UL/SPF comprises the following products:

SirDBA

A system that analyzes Model 204 databases to determine their logical structure, populating an internal catalog. SirDBA is distributed as a component of the Sir2000 Database Analysis Tools.

SirFile

A comprehensive facility both for monitoring the physical storage utilization of Model 204 database files and for warning users of the need for file reorganizations. SirFile maintains historical information that allows it to predict when file sizing problems will occur, allowing a DBA to take preventative action before an application outage results.

SirLib

A powerful and flexible system that provides change management and configuration control for Model 204 User Language applications. SirLib is fully integrated within the Model 204 programming environment, supporting unique Model 204 constructs such as file groups, while remaining nearly transparent to programmers.

SirMon

A comprehensive facility for monitoring the performance and availability of Model 204 online systems. SirMon combines the real time monitoring of Model 204 performance with intelligent full screen displays that facilitate System Manager duties.

SirPro

A collection of powerful and easy to use tools for programmers, database administrators, and application managers. SirPro provides programmers with powerful facilities for managing large libraries of User Language procedures, and it provides system managers with intuitive ISPF-like front ends to many Model 204 system management commands.

SirScan

A high performance utility that allows users in a Model 204 Online to browse the contents of its journal in real time. SirScan permits ordinary users to view journal entries generated by their own online session, and it allows users in ADMIN SCLASSes to browse journal entries for any set of users. The data is displayed in a full-screen browser with powerful searching commands and filtering options.

In addition, a number of subsystems that are not linked into the UL/SPF menuing structure may be accessed via APSY-transfer from the UL/SPF applications. One such subsystem is FACT, a utility for browsing SirFact dumps.

There are also many sample web and client-server applications developed for the Janus product family that are distributed and installed along with the UL/SPF products. These include JANCAT, an application that builds normalized views of Model 204 data for use by Janus Specialty Data Store applications, and JANSSL, a system for creating and managing SSL certificate requests.

UL/SPF packaging and installation requirements

All of the UL/SPF products are Model 204 application subsystems written in User Language. UL/SPF is distributed as a set of Model 204 files in a backup format produced by the Model 204 DUMP command. All User Language based products are distributed in a single Model 204 procedure file called SIRIUS.

UL/SPF makes extensive use of specialized User Language $functions. These $functions enable the creation of powerful User Language application systems that can support complex environments with minimal server size requirements.

Integrating UL/SPF with other subsystems

UL/SPF and any of its constituent products can be easily integrated with other User Language subsystems. Whenever a UL/SPF component product is exiting, it first checks to see if the global variable SIRIUS.COMM exists and has a non-null value. If so, the UL/SPF product performs a subsystem transfer using the value in SIRIUS.COMM as the name of the target subsystem.

For example, the following code fragment lets you transfer into SIRMON. When SIRMON exits, control is transferred to the application subsystem MENUSYS, provided that NEXTPROC is the current subsystem's communication global variable:

%rc = $Setg('SIRIUS.COMM','MENUSYS') %rc = $Setg('NEXTPROC','XFER') %rc = $Setg('XFER','SIRMON') STOP

In addition to the individual User Language subsystems that implement the UL/SPF products, Rocket Software distributes an umbrella UL/SPF subsystem: The ULSPF subsystem provides a menu that contains entries for all UL/SPF components installed at a site.

The UL/SPF subsystems support fast-path navigation. For example, a SirMon user can transfer into SirPro Option 1 by typing:

=M.1.1

UL/SPF installation

Installing UL/SPF requires downloading the SIRIUS file and restoring it to your environment, setting up some subsidiary Model 204 files, and verifying that the environment has the appropriate parameter settings. For details, see RKTools installation.

Upgrades to UL/SPF can almost always be handled by restoring a fresh copy of the SIRIUS file.