IDMS

What is the best practice for pre-compile, compile, and promotion from test to production? We have the COBOL compiler installed in our production environment/LPAR because we have always don a compile in production after promoting the source code to production. We are recognizing that this is a risky process and that we only do it in the case of IDMS. Having inherited this system from an acquisition almost 20 years ago (and now not having any seasoned DBAs and system programmers left from the original team) we are uncertain as to why we are dependent on the compile in our production environment?

Is the COBOL compile required in our production environment or can we promote our compiled load modules from test to production? Most of our IDMS apps are written in ADS in COBOL. Does our use of ADS create a dependency on running cCOBOL compiles in production? (We also front end most of out onlines with CICS but most are what I would call direct pass-through of the ADS screens.)

Paul

We do not compile Cobol programs in production, so I do not think there would be an issue with not doing it.

We do compile maps and dialogs, I think in order to ensure that all components are moved, but we do not use the resulting load modules, opting to use the modules that were tested in our QA environment.

I worked in one organization where all programs were compiled when moved to production based on the new production source.  I believe the reason was they wanted to make sure that the production source was up to date.  It allowed us to confidently recompile large batches of programs without worrying about the state of the source.