Transaction queuing and cylinder logic access in the Time, Inc. magazine/book/record system
Carl R. Gerami, T. Russell Shields, Richard John Weiland · 1976
BRGE, the Time, Inc. Magazine/Book/Record online computer system manages one of the largest existing data bases directly updated online (five billion characters). System activity is managed by an extended CICS system with the ability to route and reroute transactions to appropriate terminals. A conglomerate transaction journal is maintained to serve as an audit trail and as the primary backup mechanism for restarts and recovery. When file restoration is necessary, the journal is simply used as a transaction source, and restoration is concurrent with continuing data entry. The data base is maintained on twenty-five 3330-II disks using the Cylinder Lists of Data (CLOD) file organization method, and accessed via the Cylinder Logic Access Method (CLAM). These permit both sequential and random access to a file, and handle overflow in a monolithic and extremely speedy manner.