<boring historical stuff> Taking reports from the SPOOL and putting them in some sort of archive is now rather well established. I remember host based-only systems such as SAR, RMDS, InfoPAC (now ViewDirect?) and others. And they still exist and are in use. They seem to fall into two groups. The first consists of actual reports generated by an application. The second consists of the JES related SPOOL like JESMSGLG, JESJCL, JESYSMSG, and maybe utility messages to SYSPRINT.
Most of these started out being accessed by either TSO ISPF applications or VTAM applications or both. Many of these are now accessible via Web Browsers. Some even keep the data on other platforms such a Windows or Linux. We do this where I work. We have a product which reads the JES SPOOL and uses the LPR protocol to send the print files to a Windows server which indexes it and writes the output into proprietary files. Another server running Tomcat serves up the reports. </boring historical stuff> Now for my random thought. Many web sites such as news sites and blogs use RSS and/or Atom news feeds. The user subscribes to the feeds that they are interested in. Their PC or tablet or smartphone periodically scans those feeds for new articles. So I'm curious as to whether people who read reports could also use that facility. That is, instead of coming in, firing up a browser, and checking to see if there is a new xyz report, they subscribe to the xyz report feed. The report archive software, or whatever, would create the feed. Now they just do a fast scan of their aggregator to see if a new report is ready, instead of needing to click on a lot of links to see what is available. Now, the user can look at the report from where ever they are, subject to appropriate authority. And the ability of the device to display the report intelligibly, of course. This function would likely require an HTTPS connection instead of simple HTTP for security reasons as well as some sort of user validation (I'd prefer a digital cert, but userid/password would work too). They fire up their new aggregrator and see all a list of all the new reports to which they are subscribed. Am I stating the obvious and implemented? Or is this actually something that is a new use of existing technology? If this is "new", I freely release any and all interest that might theoretically be mine to the community to implement. I say that because somebody is likely to try to patent it in the U.S. And I hate most software patents. -- John McKown Maranatha! <>< ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
