RMS/Spool FAQ

Q. What does “AOM” represent in Mantissa’s product line?
A. ADVANCED OUTPUT MANAGEMENT™ (AOM)

Q. What are the products that make up the AOM family?
A. RMS/Online™
RMS/Spool™
RMS/DeskTop®

Q. Generally, what do these products do?
A. AOM is a family of high-powered productivity software products which fully automates the storage, access, reporting and distribution of information and expands all data center report management tasks. The system automatically handles bundling, banner page generation, tracking and archiving of reports from multiple applications. Reports are automatically directed to print, VTAM device, microfiche, online viewing, PC or other desired media. With AOM you can achieve a paperless report distribution strategy, with redistribution possible at will, by the page or for the entire report.

Q. Who do these products best serve?
A. These products are developed to support any data center management systems that are charged with delivering printed information to users all over the network. They offer comprehensive, integrated solutions for automated report delivery spanning hardcopy report packets to paperless electronic viewing or delivery.

Q. What can these products do for our data center?
A. Corporations rely on the data center more than ever. Large quantities of information have to be processed on time and delivered to the right person. AOM delivers the most powerful automation solution available for report distribution and management. Its layered architecture permits you to fine-tune system operations to meet your specific needs. Each component you add results in significant cost reductions and improvements in productivity for a quick return on your investment.

Q. Can you give an overview of the main individual components of AOM?
A.     RMS/Online – Makes reports from your applications available for viewing, automatically bundles, tracks and archives reports, and also directs reports to RMS/Spool for output and distribution.

RMS/Spool – This multi-access spool package handles VTAM and TCP/IP destinations and performs the full range of spooling tasks. Spool also provides the capability to automatically distribute and download mainframe reports to RMS/DeskTop throughout the enterprise.

RMS/DeskTop – automatically distributes mainframe reports to PCs throughout the enterprise. Includes powerful capabilities for data extraction and conversion of mainframe reports into Lotus, dBASE and other PC formats. The user can automatically print and export from the PC.

Q. What level of hardware is required for RMS/Spool?
A. Any IBM System mainframe.

Q. What operating systems can I run RMS/Spool on?
A. Any supported level of VSE and z/OS operating systems.

Q. What is the relationship between RMS/Online and RMS/Spool?
A. RMS/Online is a premier report management application and it provides repackaging and delivery of report packets to various end user destinations. Report packets can be sent to mainframe printers, online viewable files or RMS/Spool. RMS/Spool is a report printing and/or delivery system with the capability to send reports to VTAM or TCP/IP attached workstations/printers or to RMS/DeskTop clients on workstations or servers.

Q. In today’s market, businesses are more costs conscious than ever. How does AOM help?
A. AOM’s power and price add up to the best price/performance ratio of any production report management system in the industry.

Q. Are there any performance limitations on how much data can be processed by RMS/Spool?
A. Not really, we have users capturing and distributing millions of lines of print per day.

Q. Are there any capacity limitations on how much data being is processed by RMS/Spool?
A. Again, not really! Each repository can have up to 255 dasd volumes. Currently in RMS/Spool, each volume can contain up to 65K tracks but shortly we will be supporting a volume extent just shy of a million tracks worth of data.

Q. Does RMS/Spool support 64 bit?
A. While we believe there is sufficient function and performance in our 32 bit capabilities, we will be making a commitment to 64 bit soon.

Q. Can I migrate easily to your products?
A. Migration to our products can be easily accomplished as installation is straight forward and business components can be added on a individual basis.

Q. How safe is the captured data?
A. RMS/Spool, as a report printing and/or delivery system, provides basic backup capabilities and has the added feature of being able to retain printed/delivered reports for a user determined number of hours before being purged for user validation.

Q. Is access controlled?
A. RMS/Spool has an internal security component to controls access to reports and administrative functions. The product also allows for the use of external security systems.

Q. Why do I need RMS/Spool?
A. RMS/Spool is a report printing and/or delivery system with the capability to send reports to VTAM or TCP/IP attached workstations/printers or to RMS/DeskTop clients on workstations. This will allow installations to electronically deliver reported information directly to end users. The distribution requirements and printer/report management can be securely managed by authorized users without mainframe operations personnel. You can think of RMS/Spool as a mini-JES for each department without all the overhead and maintenance.

Q. Why let users manage reports?
A. End users can easily manage the restarting, rerouting and reprinting of their own reports without any knowledge of how mainframes work. They can easily reprint a report or route it to a different printer in their “group” to bypass printers that are down. This capability frees up mainframe personnel and the associated costs of their involvement in managing printers outside the data center.

Q. How does RMS/DeskTop extend the capabilities of RMS/Spool?
A. RMS/DeskTop adds the full power of PC data handling to the use of mainframe report data. See RMS/DeskTop for more information on how RMS/DeskTop can take your report data usage to the next level.