BCF environment

The products work under the IBM z/OS operating system.

BATCH CONTROL FACILITY component

The BCF component of AR/CTL assists in the management of batch DL/I jobs, improves the performance of the batch logging process, and provides useful statistics for application performance tuning.

Although BCF works with other restart products, it is not by itself a restart product. It does not supply the IMSLOGR DD statement and the restart checkpoint ID for a job that is restarted.

BMC AMI Application Restart Control services and facilities

The BMC Software AR/CTL products share a set of common services and facilities.

The AR/CTL application supervisor handles communication and coordination among the products in the application environment, calling AR/CTL products as appropriate for the application situation. AR/CTL modules also perform general functions, such as ISPF common services and communication with BMC Software subsystems for management of control information.

For more information about these services, see Administering.

BMC AMI Application Restart Control and BCF environment

BCF works closely with AR/CTL for IMS.

AR/CTL provides full checkpoint/restart support with less manual intervention than the IMS facility requires. It provides a full replacement for the IMS generalized sequential access method (GSAM) with the AR/CTL application sequential access method (ASAM). The product also works in applications that use Db2, VSAM, and sequential files. AR/CTL and BCF work together to ensure correct backout and restart for IMS batch applications. For more information about AR/CTL, see Using.