Record Management Services
| Industry | Computer software, Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Founded | November 16, 1957 |
| Headquarters | Maynard , United States |
| Products | OpenVMS, Record Management Services (RMS) |
Record Management Services (RMS) encompass a set of procedures within the VMS, RSTS/E, RT-11, and RSX-11M operating systems, enabling applications to handle files and records stored in those files. The design of RMS file formats and operations is comparable to IBM's access methods such as BDAM, BSAM, ISAM, QSAM, and the Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM), which are utilized in mainframe environments including DOS/360 and successors, OS/360 and successors, among others. RMS operates as a core component of VMS system software, functioning in executive mode. While RMS was originally an optional feature for RT-11 and RSTS/E systems, it eventually became a standard inclusion in RSTS/E.
There are four record access techniques supported by RMS:
- Sequential Access
- Relative Record Number Access
- Record File Address Access
- Indexed Access
Additionally, RMS accommodates four distinct record formats:
- Fixed-length records
- Variable-length records
- Variable-length records with fixed-size control blocks
- Stream files characterized by records delimited by specific termination characters:
- STREAM: Records ending with CRLF
- STREAM_CR: Records ending with CR
- STREAM_LF: Records ending with LF
To facilitate the definition of RMS file structures, Digital introduced the File Definition Language (FDL), which enhances the management of files within its operating systems.