Glossary
The technical and business terms used across this site, with permalinks for deep-linking.
- BMS
- Basic Mapping Support — the IBM CICS system for defining mainframe terminal screens.
- CICS
- Customer Information Control System — IBM's mainframe transaction processing monitor.
- COBOL
- Common Business-Oriented Language — the lingua franca of mission-critical business systems on the mainframe.
- Cobra
- The Filix runtime platform — a real COBOL runtime integrated with modern .NET infrastructure.
- IMS
- IBM Information Management System — a long-standing hierarchical database used in mainframe estates.
- JCL
- Job Control Language — the IBM mainframe convention for orchestrating batch jobs.
- MQ
- IBM messaging middleware (also known as WebSphere MQ or IBM MQ) — the messaging backbone of many mainframe estates.
- Mainframe
- High-end IBM hardware that still runs the core systems of many banks, insurers, and government agencies.
- Metadata server
- A purpose-built service that exposes the structure of a legacy estate to AI agents in a form they can reason from.
- Methodology
- The opinionated, layered approach Filix takes to AI-assisted modernisation. The methodology is part of the product.
- MIPS
- Millions of Instructions Per Second — the unit by which mainframe usage is typically billed.
- PL/I
- A long-standing IBM systems and applications language used alongside COBOL in many mainframe estates.
- Specification capture
- The Filix approach of extracting business rules from runtime behaviour, producing formal specifications and linked tests.