Acknowledgments

This book would not be possible without the input and efforts of many people. Some of them are listed here. I give my wholehearted thanks to everyone for their participation in and support of this project.

• Rick Long, Mark Harrington, Robert Hain, and Geoff Nicholls (IBM IMS Field Specialists) for the information in the IMS Primer that they developed and was the foundation for this book.

• Kenneth R. Blackman (IBM IMS Field Specialist) for information from his Technical note "IMS Celebrates Thirty Years as an IBM Product."

• Barbara Klein (IBM IMS Brand Manager) and Robert Gilliam (IMS Product Manager) for the use of information from their presentation, "After 36 Years IMS is Still Strategicfor our Customers and for IBM."

• Rolf-Dieter Koch (Sparkassen Informatik System Programmer) and Hannelore Nestinger (IBM IMS IT Specialist) for their guidance and participation in the writing of this book.

• Rich Lewis and Bill Stillwell (IBM Dallas Systems Center) for the use of information from their presentation, "IMS in a Parallel Sysplex®."

• Pete Sadler (IBM IMS IT Specialist) for his extensive review comments.

• The IBM IMS Development and Service organizations for their input, review comments, and answers to questions during the development of this book.

• The IBM Silicon Valley Lab User Technology Management (Tim Hogan, Janet Ikemiya, and Lori Fisher) for recognizing the need for this book and supporting its development.

• The IMS User Technology Department for supporting me in this endeavor with encouraging words, review comments, editorial comments, material from other IMS books, and time, especially Moira M. Lanyi (Technical Editor for IMS) for her in-depth edit.

• Robert Lee (Visual Designer for IMS User Technology) for the wonderful graphics in this book.

• Vern Watts (IBM IMS Distinguished Engineer Emeritus and member of the original IMS Development Team) for his vision, his inspiration for this project, and his words in the Foreword.

• Finally, my wife, Judy Meltz, who unselfishly encouraged and supported me (in spite of the many hours and weekends I worked) in my efforts to bring this book to completion.

IMS User Technology

Dean H. Meltz