An online transaction processing (OLTP) program from IBM used with the COBOL programming language. Using the application programming interface (API) provided by CICS, a programmer can write programs that communicate with online users and read from or write to customer and other records (orders, inventory figures, customer data, and so forth) in a database (usually referred to as “data sets”) using CICS facilities rather than IBM’s access methods directly. Like other transaction managers, CICS can ensure that transactions are completed and, if not, undo partly completed transactions so that the integrity of data records is maintained.