ZOIS Limited

ZOIS Limited is a very small computer consultancy specialising in On-Line Transaction Processing (OLTP) on open systems and the World Wide Web. That practically means consultancy in CICS, Tuxedo and Enterprise Java Beans (EJB).

In order to help people understand more about these topics and distributed computing in general we've written number of small papers, explanations and technical notes, follow the links on the sections below.

If you have guessed "www.zois.com" and are surprised by this OLTP stuff, look to our other "zois" sites page and see if what you want is there.

Potential plagiarists are asked to note the source of the material you might find here and are reminded of the Bern Convention. To that silently asked question, no, you don't need to cover everything with © Copyright symbols.

OLTP

Another transaction completed

Here's some small papers we've prepared on the subject ...

• OLTP made simple for non-cognoscente like Brain Surgeons and Rocket Scientists.
• OLTP, here's an executive summary.
• OLTP is needed for big computers.
• OLTP is needed for reliability.
• OLTP is all about managing Transactions.
• OLTP is about scaling.

Transaction Processing Monitors

Transaction Processing Monitors (TPM) are the computer systems that do OLTP. Here are some reviews of the popular ones that we've been involved in (with some sample source code). The order is alphabetic, we've tried to be vendor neutral in true open style.

• CICS (also known as TXSeries on some systems).
• Encina (now only of historical interest).
• Top End (also only of historical interest).
• Tuxedo.

Object Oriented Transactions and the Web

Driven by extending commerce to the World Wide Web, things are moving toward an Object Oriented approach built around the programming language Java. Here's some papers on this too ...

• How do WWW Servers fit in.
• Object Transactions Services (OTS).
• Enterprise Java Beans (EJB).
• A critique of EJBs.
• A quick look at XML.

The Unofficial National Jobcentre Plus Mirror

As a pro-bono service, we're scraping the UK Government's Jobcentre Plus and Jobseekers Direct service. Originally this was work done in an indignant response to the closure of the local Jobcentre Plus office, here in Cockermouth. It has been expanded nationally and now the whole of the UK (now sadly excluding Northern Ireland). Vacancy details are scraped off various web-sites and stored as a set of files that can be downloaded from our ftp site, as well as a variety of other mechanisms. There's more explanation elsewhere.

Technical Notes

Starting from mid-June 2002 we thought it would be good to document and publish various bits of work as they are done. Folk doing similar work could find these documents using web-search engines and hopefully then find them useful. The names of these `Technical Notes' reflect the time they were written and they are mostly concerned with OLTP. In the absence of proper peer-review, and as with other parts of the web-site, we invite Feedback.

Miscellaneous

A place for:

• Some information on what is going on in the groves of Academia on OLTP.
• Informed conjecture on what Microsoft is doing in the OLTP arena.
• Further sources of information, largely books, but also ...
• A largely unadorned set of web browser book marks with OLTP related links including those TPM which we do not specialise in.

Mr. OLTP

Impressed by the efforts of Mr. DNS, we hope to provide a similar service to the Open OLTP community. Go ahead and ask Mr. OLTP. Remember that he's quite busy earning an honest crust, so questions might not be answered right away. Also some of the questions you may ask, we respectfully point out, may be better asked of your OLTP provider's support organization. Hopefully, you'll find Mr. OLTP's answers informative (if not entertaining).

Cockermouth

ZOIS is based in the quaintly named town of Cockermouth. Although a quick search on Cockermouth produces a large number of `hits', all of these appear to be of a tawdry commercial variety, directories touting for business, that sort of thing. There's very little information on the town itself. Hopefully our meager efforts will go some way in correcting that.

Finally ...

Credit where Credit is Due. Please do send Feedback. The Web being the dynamic animal it is there will from time to time be broken links. Please do report them.

You may find that these pages are stuck in a frame. You may want to read this without the benefit of stuff that may have been dumped around it or even bookmark the page (rather than the frame). In such circumstances you will find a handy link at the bottom of each page entitled "Break Frame". Using it should enable the page you want to emerge from its surrounding frames and be displayed on its own.

Legalise

ZOIS Limited is registered in England, Number 2197775. The registered office is 14a, Main St, Cockermouth, CA13 9LQ.

~Z~

Navigation

This is some navigation, it should appear at the side if the page is wide, and at the bottom if it is not.

Search

Seek enlightenment and wisdom: 

Example: "tuxedo".

Also of Interest

Juicy morsels from the rest of the site:

• Some site news; it's a sort of infrequently updated journal for the author too.
• Rather specific Technical Notes, the author can still bore people in the Historic Third-person.
• Of the little hacks that have been done recently, the Unofficial Jobcentre Plus Mirror seems to have gained the most traction.
• Other ephemeral, eclectic stuff. Mostly photographs.
• A series of Gormless Anecdotes, basically recycled e-mails.

About the Author

His name is Martin Sullivan. He's a fifty-something some-time computer programmer living in the quaintly named town of Cockermouth in north-west England.

The Company

ZOIS Limited is basically a vehicle for Martin and his OLTP work, he owns it. You can find out more about it elsewhere on the main site.

Pro-Bono Plug

Martin is currently on a health sabbatical, but is interested in the odd bit of pro-bono work by the way of therapeutic recovery. So, if you've anything that he can tackle on a non-commercial basis from his base in Cockermouth please let him know. Unsurprisingly, he's particularly interest in biology, again, and the application of computing to it.