When you FTP a bunch of datasets, you can compress them into a single one or add as a list in the JCL. There is no limit for the data which you can send over FTP but, it can burn down you company bandwidth You can use this method to transfer a single Member / a PDS or a huge list of PDS’es to Mainframe.

zOS has a FTP server built into it and that’s why we are able to send files from PC to Mainframe(Using Command prompt, Windows Shell is the next Method in this series). This is the bare minimum requirement for FTPing, (a client to send file and a FTP server on the receiver side). FTP uses Port 21, when you send files from zOS to Windows PC, zOS expects a FTP server listening on Port 21 at windows box. Setup FTP with IIS (Internet Information Service) FTP server. These methods are easy to use and utilizes the free resources available in IBM Mainframe as well as Windows/free wares.ģ. You could also read other methods I’ve written about FTP’ing files from IBM Mainframe to Windows. Another solution is that you can change the variable length record to Fixed length record prior to transmitting the file. When Transferring Variable length (VB) files (Files with Occurs depending on fields in copybook), the destination program has to modify to read the counter variable from File and then iterate to read the field. In Mainframe Files are in EBCDIC format and Non-Mainframe platforms are in ASCII, so if you FTP files with packed Decimals in it (COMP, COMP-1, COMP-3 etc), Target system will not be able to read them properly, SO you need to unpack the fields before you transfer them over FTP The biggest Challenges while FTPing file from Mainframe are Initially I’ll cover the processes to FTP from Mainframe and later I’m planning to cover the advanced topics like Secure FTP and FTF Methods. In this series, I’m going to cover the methods used for FTPing files from Mainframe to Non-Mainframe Platform.

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