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12/20/2012 11:26 AM

	JBIT83
4 posts

Modeling Mainframe Systems

I am trying to model an IBM z/OS mainframe transaction processing system application because there is no existing documentatation from when this system was designed. I'm not quite sure what to visually depict on the context and then start breaking it down from there, such as the major batch processes that are run, system actors, dataset stores, and so on. Does anyone have any suggestions or examples of mainframe application system models.

John B.

12/20/2012 3:42 PM

	Kimbo
454 posts

Re: Modeling Mainframe Systems

Hi John,

If your intention is purely to model the software without a business perspective then try something like a UML component diagram or sequence diagram. Not my area. I'm a business analyst.

Kimbo

12/21/2012 6:09 AM

	Tony Markos
493 posts

Re: Modeling Mainframe Systems

Hi:

I recently created a model of transaction processing across the Web middle-tier at a very large company, including interfaces to alot of mainframes. What I did was use data flow diagrams, where each transaction was a data flow which I "flowed out" start to finish. Important: Since no to two transactions had the same flow path, it was critical to flow out each transaction seperately.

Data flow diagrams are ideal for starting at the context diagram level (a context diagram is a data flow diagram), and then breaking it down from there.

Tony