Interfaces and Integration Points Best Practices › Batch Terminal Interface

Batch Terminal Interface

Use the Batch Terminal Interface (BTI) program SASSBSTR to send commands to CA7ONL in batch and receive the output from the commands in SYSPRINT format.

We highly recommend that you run any long running command (such as RESOLV) or commands that have many lines of output through BTI. Also, processing database additions or updates in batch let you retain the commands used in case you have to recreate the process.

The following is the sequence of events when executing SASSBSTR:

If you are using Dynamic BTI Management, the BTI program dynamically allocates the BATCHIN and BATCHOUT files associated with a specific batch terminal. Typically, the BTI program constructs the data set names for these files using the data set name prefix from the communication data set (UCC7CMDS DD). The suffix BATCHI#n/BATCHO#n is appended to the prefix to construct the full data set names (where n is the associated batch terminal number).

The constructed BATCHIN and BATCHOUT data set names must match the data set names in the CA7ONL procedure.

Note: If a specific batch terminal (1-8) is specified on the PARM and the BATCHIN and BATCHOUT DDs are in the BTI JCL, no dynamic allocation occurs.

SASSBSTR writes SYSIN to the BATCHIN data set.

SASSBSTR then verifies the status flags in the UCC7CMDS (communications data set) to see whether CA7ONL is up and whether the requested batch terminal is available.

If CA7ONL is up and the batch terminal is not in use--SASSBSTR turns on a setting in the UCC7CMDS file that tells CA7ONL it has commands to process from this batch terminal.

CA7ONL reads the settings in the UCC7CMDS and processes the commands from the appropriate BATCHIN data set.

As CA WA CA 7 Edition processes the commands from BATCHIN, it writes the output from the commands into the appropriate BATCHOUT data set.

When the commands are completed, CA7ONL turns on a setting in the UCC7CMDS file noting this completion.

The SASSBSTR program has been waking every few seconds to check the setting. When it sees that CA7ONL has completed the processing, it writes BATCHOUT to SYSPRINT and ends.

Never cancel a BTI job that is executing. If the program SASSBSTR is canceled, the batch terminal used may not be accessible again until you shut down and restart CA7ONL.

Business Value:

BTI input can be saved and used to recreate the database updates or changes and commands that produce much output can be processed.