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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
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ENHANCING THE SECURITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF MAP
(HMI) IN MAINFRAME CICS APPLICATIONS.
C.CHRISTINA BEULA, GAUTAM SIDDHARTH, KUNJAL BANAVALA, SRUTHI.B,
RISHI HANSDA
*(Tata Consultancy Services, India)
Abstract:
Attractive interfaces and security aspects go
hand in hand in modern day mobile and web
applications. Hence we ventured out to
implement these concepts in the mainframe
CICS environment (known as BIG IRON). Circle
interface provides a rich visual interface and
also has an added advantage which helps the
user to know the most recently and the most
frequently accessed application/page. The
features such as security image and password
locking covers the security aspects of our
application. This kind of application offers anefficient and secure package to the user which
helps in achieving customer delight. Hence in
this paper we have provided our inputs for
developing user-friendly yet secure interface
which enables mainframe to be used for various
front end applications.
Keywords: Circle interface, Effective GUI,
Application security, User-friendly application,
CICS application.
1.1. Effective GUI:
The gaining importance of effective GUI
amongst the consumers has imposed a thrust
on the design of an interface. Designing an
efficient and attractive interface poses a big
challenge in the design and development of
any application. The look and feel of theinterfaces revolutionized with dawn of the
new concepts like Circle Interfaces. The
introduction of circle interface has helped
the user directly enter a desired application
skipping the cumbersome process of
traverse through multiple screens before
ending up at the desired location/page. In
short, it provides an eagles view of the
various options that are available in an
application with no/minimal user inputs.
Thus Circle interface provides a simple,
easy and rich visual interface which is both
pleasing and logical and hence serve as an
excellent communication tool. The success
stories of some of the leading pioneers in the
field of Circle Interface like Apple and
Google+ bear witness for its critical acclaim.
1.2. Safe and Secure GUI:
Additionally providing a safe and secure
application is also the need of the hour. With
this in mind, to make the mainframe more
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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
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secure, we have implemented a security
image which mimics the CAPTCHA
environment used in most of the current
generation web applications. The image
which is captured during registration is
verified in forgot password screen to check
for credibility of the user, thereby tagging
security to the mainframe application. The
concept of locking the username and
password when a user tries to login with the
wrong credentials more than thrice ensures
that the application is hack-free. Hence, in
the current work, we have tried to
implement the circular interface in themainframe environment which has an added
advantage of being safe and secure which
helps the user experience trust.
2. Algorithms:
Here is an example of implementation of
circular interface and security concepts in
Mainframe. Our sample application consists
of the following four options:
Addition Subtraction Menu WelcomeThe home page displays the above
mentioned options in a circular menu and
the user can enter any desired
page/application by clicking on the
appropriate icon. The following steps are
taken for the implementation of circular
interface:
Step 1:
Depiction of various options on the home
page (as shown in Figure 4.1).
Step 2:
Determining the cursor positions for each
option and providing the feature that when
ENTER key is pressed the program checks
for the cursor position and the application
which is currently present in that position
(as shown in Figure 4.2), and shifts the
control to the corresponding program.
Conditional return is maintained so as to
retain the control is in the first program.
Step 3:
Once the control has been passed to the
respective program, calculations are
performed according to the requirements of
the map/program and when F3 is pressed thecontrol returns to the main program with a
different commarea. For example, if the
control returns form Welcome page, it
possess 'ABC2' as its commarea value.
Step 4:
Upon returning to the main program,
depending on the commarea the most recent
map accessed is placed at the top by movingthe labels and the number of times the map
is accessed is stored in the map_count table
in the database to keep track of the
frequently accessed page/map(as shown in
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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
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Figure 4.3). Note that the conditions for
EIBCPOSN have changed (as shown in
Figure 4.4) corresponding to the changes in
the label position.
Step 5:
Step 2 to 4 are repeated every time ENTER
key is pressed. Also every time the main
screen updates the number of times the map
has been accessed after the transaction. This
detail is fetched from the table map_count.
The security aspects of the application are
implemented by incorporation of the imagecapturing technique (as shown in Figure 4.5)
during new user registration and validating
the image for its name and number in the
forget password page. Figure 4.6 shows the
user registration page wherein a new user
selects an image and assigns a name to it.
Later, when the user tries to reset his
password in addition to validating the email-
id, the user's credibility is checked for by
asking him/her to reenter the image numberand name. If the entered name and image
matches that provided during registration,
the user is allowed to reset his/her password.
In addition to this feature, a secure
environment to the application was added by
providing a mechanism for locking the
account when the user tries to login with the
wrong credentials more than thrice. Hence
all these features together ensure that the
application is safe, secure and presentable.
3. Applications:
A pleasant, attractive and secure GUI
has now become an integral component of
any application. Hence, this innovative
interface possesses the inherent ability to fit
into wide range of day to day applications.
Some striking scenarios includes the use of
Circle Interface as the GUI in ATMs (easeof access), as a replacement for the
conventional drop-down list in networking
sites (improved presentation logic), as menu
tool for small screen devices (efficient space
management). Its relatively simple design
enables both a novice and an expert user
experience ease in accessing application.
Moreover, the salient features of the
application qualify it to be used for
situations which demand security. Thus the
application helps in providing a user-
friendly, robust and visually enriched
interface.
4. Figures:
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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
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Figure 4.1: Screen depicting the circle interface in a mainframe environment
Figure 4.2: Condition for navigation based on cursor position
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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
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Figure 4.3: Condition for placing the recently accessed page/option at the top
Figure 4.5: Security image capturing during registration
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International Journal for Research and Development in Engineering (IJRDE)
www.ijrde.com Vol.1: Issue.2, October-November 2012 pp- 1-6
6
Figure 4.6: Security image validation for forget password
5. Conclusion:
The scope of mainframe is endless.Exploring its potential will lead to
implementation of mainframes for a variety
of useful front end applications. This will be
of great benefit to the user as it provides a
combination of larger memory, high
processing speed and user-friendly interface.
Further enhancements to the current
application such as provision for username,
password and database encryption would
further enhance its applicability.
6. Acknowledgments:
We would like to thank our technical lead
Mr. Robin Tommy who was instrumental in
helping us with our project work.
7. References:
[1]. Le Bert, CICS Essentials for Application
Developers and Programmers
[2]. Meier et al, Improving Web Application
Security: Threats and Countermeasures,
Microsoft patterns & practices, June 2003