What is UNIX ®?

In 1994 Novell (who had acquired the UNIX systems business of AT&T/USL) decided to get out of that business. Rather than sell the business as a single entity, Novell transferred the rights to the UNIX trademark and the specification (that subsequently became the Single UNIX Specification) to The Open Group (at the time X/Open Company). Subsequently, it sold the source code and the product implementation (UNIXWARE) to SCO. The Open Group also owns the trademark UNIXWARE, transferred to them from SCO more recently.
Today, the definition of UNIX ® takes the form of the worldwide Single UNIX Specification integrating X/Open Company's XPG4, IEEE's POSIX Standards and ISO C. Through continual evolution, the Single UNIX Specification is the defacto and dejure standard definition for the UNIX system application programming interfaces. As the owner of the UNIX trademark, The Open Group has separated the UNIX trademark from any actual code stream itself, thus allowing multiple implementations. Since the introduction of the Single UNIX Specification, there has been a single, open, consensus specification that defines the requirements for a conformant UNIX system.

Introduction

Many names have been applied to the work that has culminated in the Single UNIX Specification and its attendant X/Open UNIX brand. It began as the Common API Specification, became Spec 1170, and is now the Single UNIX Specification published in a number of X/Open Common Applications Environment (CAE) volumes. This paper briefly describes the history of Spec 1170, and its journey to becoming the Single UNIX Specification, along with the organization of that specification.

HistoryPreviously the UNIX operating system has been a product with four elements (Figure 1); the specification (e.g. SVID) , the technology (e.g. SVR4), the registered trade mark (UNIX), and the product (e.g. UNIXWare)

With the Single UNIX Specification, there is now a single, open, consensus specification that defines a product. There is also a mark, or brand, that is used to identify those products that conform to the Single UNIX specification. Both the specification and the trade mark are now managed and held in trust for the industry by X/Open Company. There will be many competing products, all implemented against the Single UNIX Specification, ensuring competition and vendor choice. There will be a limited number of technology suppliers, which vendors can license and build there own product, all of them implementing the Single UNIX Specification. . Buyers can expect each of these products to carry the X/open UNIX brand as an guarantee of conformance to the specification and that the vendor stands behind a quality product.

UNIX 93 applies to UNIX system products which pre-date the Single UNIX Specification.
UNIX 95 applies to UNIX system products which conform to the Single UNIX Specification.
UNIX 98 applies to UNIX system products which conform to the Single UNIX Specification , Version 2.
UNIX 03 applies to UNIX system products which conform to the Single UNIX Specification , Version 3.

COBOL

Aims To provide a brief introduction to the programming language COBOL. To provide a context in which its uses might be understood. To introduce the Metalanguage used to describe syntactic elements of the language. To provide an introduction to the major structures present in a COBOL program.

Objectives By the end of this unit you should -

1. Know what the acronym COBOL stands for.
2. Be aware of the significance of COBOL in the marketplace.
3. Understand some of the reasons for COBOL's success.
4. Be able to understand COBOL Metalanguage syntax diagrams.
5. Be aware of the COBOL coding rules
6. Understand the structure of COBOL programs
7. Understand the purpose of the IDENTIFICATION, ENVIRONMENT, DATA and PROCEDURE divisions.

What is COBOL?

Introduction COBOL is a high-level programming language first developed by the CODASYL Committee (Conference on Data Systems Languages) in 1960. Since then, responsibility for developing new COBOL standards has been assumed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Three ANSI standards for COBOL have been produced: in 1968, 1974 and 1985. A new COBOL standard introducing object-oriented programming to COBOL, is due within the next few years.
The word COBOL is an acronym that stands for COmmon Business Oriented Language. As the the expanded acronym indicates, COBOL is designed for developing business, typically file-oriented, applications. It is not designed for writing systems programs. For instance you would not develop an operating system or a compiler using COBOL.

What is SAP?

SAP, started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world's largest inter-enterprise software company and the world's fourth-largest independent software supplier, overall.
The original name for SAP was German: Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte, German for "Systems Applications and Products." The original SAP idea was to provide customers with the ability to interact with a common corporate database for a comprehensive range of applications. Gradually, the applications have been assembled and today many corporations, including IBM and Microsoft, are using SAP products to run their own businesses.
SAP applications, built around their latest R/3 system, provide the capability to manage financial, asset, and cost accounting, production operations and materials, personnel, plants, and archived documents. The R/3 system runs on a number of platforms including Windows 2000 and uses the client/server model. The latest version of R/3 includes a comprehensive Internet-enabled package.
SAP has recently recast its product offerings under a comprehensive Web interface, called mySAP.com, and added new e-business applications, including customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM).
As of January 2007, SAP, a publicly traded company, had over 38,4000 employees in over 50 countries, and more than 36,200 customers around the world. SAP is turning its attention to small- and-medium sized businesses (SMB). A recent R/3 version was provided for IBM's AS/400 platform.

What is SDN?

The SAP Developer Network (SDN) is a vibrant online community for SAP developers, analysts, consultants, integrators, and administrators. SDN members enjoy a robust collection of technical content on a range of SAP topics.
Activate your free membership for access to:
Expert blogs
Technical articles, white papers, and how-to guides
Moderated forums
Software downloads
An extensive eLearning catalog
A Wiki that supports open communication
See what our members have to say about the value of the SDN and BPX communities. Read their success stories and create your own on SDN and BPX!

SAP notes
ModulesFI : Financial AccountingCO : ControlingAA : Asset AccountingPS : Project SystemSD : Sales and DistributionMM : Materials ManagementEC : Enterprise Controlling
Command Field/o : open session/n : end current transaction/i : close session
Functional Areas of SAPLogisticsAccountingHuman ResourcesInformatin Systems
Administrative Areas of SAPOfficeToolsSystemHelp
Field TypesMandatoryOptionalDisplay
DefinitionsWBS - Work Breakdown structureSAP - System Applications and Products
Other Module Functions
(PP) Production Planning - Sales and operation Planning, materials requisition planning, bill of materials work centers...Where production orders, receipts and scheduling occurs. Used in MM inventory reconcilliation, and in CO-PC standard costing and financial monthly performance of a plant. Organizational Elements (Structures):
Company Code
Plant
Storage Location
Material/Product Grouping
(IM) Investment Management - where the program plan (capital Budget) and internal orders are managed.
(BW) Business Information Warehouse - A SAP product that satisfies the need for storing, retrieving and joining information that originates inside SAP or from an external source. Constructed on data warehousing concepts, it has an Excell front end to make it user friendly. This executave information system addresses the issue of joining data from multiple SAP systems, and legacy applications. Bw addresses global reporting where information is held on multiple platforms. It allows for a single tool for management reporting.
Utility PgmsZmen - to find the menu path for any transaction Zf03 - Valid account - cost object combinations OKEN - Cost Center Standard Hieirachy KS03 - Cost Center Display .

What Is .NET?

.NET is the Microsoft Web services strategy to connect information, people, systems, and devices through software. Integrated across the Microsoft platform, .NET technology provides the ability to quickly build, deploy, manage, and use connected, security-enhanced solutions with Web services. .NET-connected solutions enable businesses to integrate their systems more rapidly and in a more agile manner and help them realize the promise of information anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Microsoft. NET
The Microsoft. NET strategy was presented by Microsoft officials to the rest of the world in June 2000:
.NET is Microsoft's new Internet and Web strategy
.NET is NOT a new operating system
.NET is a new Internet and Web based infrastructure
.NET delivers software as Web Services
.NET is a framework for universal services
.NET is a server centric computing model
.NET will run in any browser on any platform
.NET is based on the newest Web standards


The Microsoft platform includes everything a business needs to develop and deploy a Web service-connected IT architecture: servers to host Web services, development tools to create them, applications to use them, and a worldwide network of more than 35,000 Microsoft Certified Partner organizations to provide any help you need.

• What Are Web Services?
  If you ask a developer what Web services are, you'll hear something like, "self-describing software modules, semantically encapsulating discrete functionality, wrapped in and accessible via standard Internet communication protocols like XML and SOAP."
  But if you ask a business leader who has implemented Web service-based solutions, you'll get a different kind of answer. You'll hear that Web services are an approach that helps the business connect with its customers, partners, and employees. They enable the business to extend existing services to new customers. They help the business work more efficiently with its partners and suppliers. They unlock information so it can flow to every employee who needs it. They reduce development time and expense for new projects. You'll hear less about what Web services are and more about what they enable the business to do.
  Benefits of Web Services
  By enabling applications to share data across different hardware platforms and operating systems, Web services provide many benefits, including:
  •Opening the door to new business opportunities by making it easy to connect with partners.Delivering dramatically more personal, integrated experiences to users through the new breed of smart devices—including PCs.
  •Saving time and money by cutting development time.
  •Increasing revenue streams by enabling businesses to easily make their own Web services available to others.
  

Connecting Applications Through Web Services
Web services are revolutionizing how applications talk to other applications—or, more broadly, how computers talk to other computers—by providing a universal data format that lets data be easily adapted or transformed. Based on XML, the universal language of Internet data exchange, Web services can communicate across platforms and operating systems, regardless of the programming language in which the applications are written.
Each Web service is a discrete unit of code that handles a limited set of tasks. However, although Web services remain independent of each other, they can loosely link themselves into a collaborating group that performs a particular task.

.NET Internet Standards
.NET is built on the following Internet standards:
HTTP, the communication protocol between Internet Applications
XML, the format for exchanging data between Internet Applications
SOAP, the standard format for requesting Web Services
UDDI, the standard to search and discover Web Services

NET Framework
The .NET Framework is the infrastructure for the new Microsoft .NET Platform.

Additional Information
The .NET plan includes a new version of the Windows operating system, a new version of Office, and a variety of new development software for programmers to build Web-based applications.
The background for .NET is part of Microsoft's new strategy to keep Windows the dominant operating system in the market, as computing begins to move away from desktop computers toward Internet enabled devices, such as hand-held computers and cell phones.
The most visual components of the new .NET framework are the new Internet Information Server 6.0, with ASP.NET and ADO.NET support, Visual Studio.NET software tools to build Web-based software, and new XML support in the SQL Server 2000 database.
Bill Gates is supervising the .NET project.
The .NET Framework is a common environment for building, deploying, and running Web Services and Web Applications.
The .NET Framework contains common class libraries - like ADO.NET, ASP.NET and Windows Forms - to provide advanced standard services that can be integrated into a variety of computer systems