Program-to-Program Interface › Uses of PPI

Uses of PPI

Program-to-Program Interface (PPI) provides a general-purpose facility for programs, written in any language, to exchange data. It also provides a facility for any program to forward a generic alert to your product.

As PPI is available to any environment, not just NCL, PPI provides a simple, powerful technique to access your product from outside.

For example, an NCL process could provide a batch program with the ability to issue selected product commands and return the results of the command to it.

No special authorization is required to use PPI, and it does not depend on having your product running. The PPI implementation can use either Cross-Memory Services or Service Request Block (SRB) scheduling.

The NCL &PPI verb provides access to the Program-to-Program Interface in your product. This interface allows any programs, executing on the same system, written in almost any programming language to freely exchange information.

The API provided by the Program-to-Program Interface is described in IBM's Tivoli NetView Application Programming Guide: Program to Program Interface.

The PPI services can be provided by the subsystem interface for your product (SSI) or by the Tivoli NetView Subsystem Interface.