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This article was written by Tanya Puntti for Database Application Development - Central Queensland University.

Popular TP monitor products

Popular transaction processing monitors include Tuxedo from BEA Systems, MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server) from Microsoft and CICS from IBM. While each monitor has their own unique features, they all provide similar fundamental capabilities needed in a transaction processing system. Micromax Information Services (1999) lists these capabilities as being:

• Transaction and data integrity
• Workload management
• Communication services
• Enhanced security
• Scalability
• On-line administration
• High performance
• Access to legacy data
• High availability
• Vendor independence

Tuxedo from BEA Systems

Tuxedo was developed and designed by AT&T in 1984 for UNIX systems and later extended to also work with other platforms including Windows NT, Windows 2000 and XP as well as Linux, Solaris and many others (BEA Systems, 2006). It was originally developed for the creation and administration of online e-commerce transaction processing systems. According to BEA Systems, the first application that it was used on was called LMOS. Tuxedo is now compatible with numerous programming languages including C, C++, CORBA C++, C#, Visual Basic, .NET Client and COBOL. Tuxedo is also compatible with a number of resource managers including Oracle and Informix. Furthermore, it supports TCP/IP via sockets and includes Java enabled Internet integration.

Other features and benefits for Tuxedo monitor are listed at : http://www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=features.htm&FP=/content/products/tux/

Microsoft Transaction Server

According to Microsoft, ‘Microsoft Transaction Server (or MTS) is a service component that enables support for transactions to be easily implemented in other applications’. According to Strahl another one of its most useful features is ‘its distributed SQL transaction support through application/component code rather than through database transactions’. Basically what this means is that a transaction can be created that writes data to entirely different database products, for example SQL Server and Oracle, and yet have the ability to control it with a single code module. It is important to note however, that Microsoft Transaction Server only works on one operating system, that is, Windows NT 4.0 or earlier versions (Microsoft 2006). Microsoft Transaction Server is compatible with numerous programming languages including: Microsoft Visual Basic®, Visual C++®, Visual J++®, or any ActiveX-compatible development tool.

Architectural elements of Microsoft Transaction Server as listed at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dnarmts/html/msdn_mtsintro.asp

CICS from IBM

CICS, short for Customer Information Control System, is a transaction processing monitor from IBM. It was originally developed to provide transaction processing for IBM mainframes. According to IBM it ‘controls the interaction between applications and users and lets programmers develop screen displays without detailed knowledge of the terminals being used’. CICS applications can be written in numerous programming languages, including COBOL, C, C++, and Java (IBM 2006). According to IBM, they currently have over 30,000 CICS licenses in over 20,000 businesses. Furthermore, over 90% of the fortune 500 companies run CICS. One of the main advantages of CICS is the worldwide IBM support and training available.

Overview of CICS transaction processing monitor as listed at
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/htp/cics/35/cics_intro/

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