This IBM Redbooks publication is called a primer, as it is intended to be an introductory book to help familiarize the reader with the basics of IMS. Much of the original content of this book was in an early IMS manual called the IMS Primer, which was discontinued a number of years ago.

This book will help you understand some of the basic functions of IMS. It also tries to position IMS with regard to some of the other IBM products, and it gives a broad understanding of the architecture of IMS. The book is meant as an overview of the IMS product. It contains general information on many of the features of IMS.

The first part of the book contains an overview of the transaction and database managers. This entails describing the basic function of each. It also includes an overview of how IMS interfaces with other products like the OS/390 operating system.

The second part of the book provides a more detailed explanation of the IMS Transaction Manager. It covers a detailed explanation of message processing. It also contains an introduction to the application programming interface to the IMS system.

The third part of the book provides a more detailed explanation of the IMS Database Manager. It starts out with some basic database concepts and includes the hierarchical model and how it is implemented in IMS. It provides some information on database design and choosing the right database types. It also includes an explanation of the database backup, recovery, and reorganization utilities.

The fourth part of the book explains application programming within the IMS environments. This includes both transaction and database programming interfaces as well as the message format services (MFS).

The fifth part of the book explains some basic IMS administration functions. These include database recovery (DBRC), RECON record information, IMS logging and the IMS system generation procedure.

This edition applies to IBM Information Management System (IMS), Transaction and Database Server for System 390 Program Number 5697-B89 for use with the OS/390 operating systems

Part 1. Overview of IMS

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. IMS and OS/390

Chapter 3. IMS TM and DB general information

Part 2. IMS Transaction Manager

Chapter 4. The IMS control region

Chapter 5. Processing input from a terminal

Chapter 6. Fast-Path transactions

Chapter 7. Non-terminal related input

Chapter 8. The master terminal

Chapter 9. Application program processing overview

Part 3. IMS Database Manager

Chapter 10. Database basics

Chapter 11. The IMS hierarchical database model

Chapter 12. Implementation of the IMS database model

Chapter 13. Choosing the correct type of database

Chapter 14. Database reorganization processing

Chapter 15. Database recovery processing

Part 4. IMS application development

Chapter 16. Application programming overview

Chapter 17. Application coding for IMS Transaction Manager

Chapter 18. IMS message format service

Chapter 19. Application coding for IMS Database Manager

Part 5. IMS system adminstration

Chapter 20. Database recovery control (DBRC)

Chapter 21. RECON record types

Chapter 22. IMS logging

Chapter 23. IMS system generation process

Chapter 24. IMS security overview