The event binding file is an XML file that defines a set of event specifications to
CICS®.
Each event binding file can be separately deployed. The event binding
consists of several parts, each edited in a separate tab in the editor.
Event Binding
tab
You use this tab to work with information that applies to the whole event binding.
You can specify general information, consisting of a name, description, and a version. You can validate and deploy
the complete event binding. The rest of the panel consists of a list of the event specifications that you have
defined in this event binding, and a set of buttons to work with event specifications in the following ways:
- Add a new event specification.
- Edit an existing event specification.
- Remove an existing event specification.
Specification
tab
You use this tab to work with event specifications, and capture specifications.
You can specify general information for this event specification, consisting of a name and a description. You can
add and remove event information to be captured for this event specification, and order the items of event
information.
You can add capture specifications to the event specification. A capture specification defines the EXEC CICS
command, filtering, and data values for the event. You can create more than one capture specification for an event
specification. For each capture specification, the editor opens a notebook with the following three tabs:
- Capture Point
tab
- In this tab, you choose the EXEC CICS command that you wish to associate with this capture point and
provide a name and description for the capture point.
- Filtering
tab
- In this tab, you provide predicates to restrict the situations in which an event is emitted. If you provide
no predicates, events are emitted every time the EXEC CICS command chosen in the capture point tab
runs in the target CICS system. Each predicate consists of information identifying the predicate, an
operator, and a value. You can specify as many predicates as required to identify the situation in which you
want this capture point to emit an event. You can specify three types of predicates:
- Application Context
- Every capture point has context items for which you can specify predicates. An example is the
Transaction ID. All the available application context predicates are shown in the
Filtering
tab. Application context predicates are optional; however, you typically specify the transaction ID or current program
to emit events from a particular application.
- Application Command Options
- Each EXEC CICS command that can be specified for a capture point can have application command options for which
you can specify predicates. Some commands have no application command options.
Application command options correspond with the options for a particular
EXEC CICS command. An example for the SEND MAP command is the MAP name. All the available fixed
data values for the EXEC CICS command for that capture point are shown in the
Filtering
tab.
The format of application command options is known to CICS.
- Application Data
- Each EXEC CICS command that can be specified for a capture point can have variable length data values for which
you can specify predicates. The application data corresponds with the options for a particular
EXEC CICS command. An example for the SEND MAP command is the FROM field. All the available variable
data values for the EXEC CICS command for that capture point are shown in the
Filtering
tab.
Application data is used for storage areas like a COMMAREA or container passed as options on CICS commands.
The format of these areas is unknown to CICS,
but known by your application program. You probably have a source language description that
you can import to describe the format.
- Information Sources
tab
- In this tab, you map the business information items associated with the event specification to available
data items for this capture point. The tab consists of a table of the business information items that you
defined. To map the item, double-click the item, and the
Edit Information Source
window will appear.
Adapter
tab
You use this tab to select an EP adapter that will emit events for this event binding.
You can also provide advanced
information that tells CICS how to run the EP adapter. The tab consists of two sections.
- Adapter
- In this section, you choose the type of EP adapter and supply information required by your chosen EP adapter.
- TS Queue
- Emits events to a named CICS TS queue.
This EP adapter can be used to validate that the correct events are being captured with the correct data and
to emit events to any consumer that reads from a TS queue.
- Transaction Start
- Emits events to a named CICS transaction. The transaction
is passed data in a container-based event format.
You can specify the CICS system that will run the transaction.
You can use an existing transaction, if the event data is not required.
- Custom (User Written)
- Emits events in any format that you require. A custom EP adapter is a CICS program that you write to provide a combination of formatting and
routing of an event that is not supported by the CICS-supplied EP adapters. It must not carry out
any other processing, such as consumption of the event.
- WMQ Queue
- Emits events to a WebSphere MQ queue either in an XML format for consumption by WebSphere
Business Events, the Common Base Event (CBE) format for WebSphere Business Monitor, or in a binary format.
- Advanced
- Supplying information in this section is not required to complete the event binding. If you need to
influence the way in which CICS runs the EP adapter, you can change the priority, transactionality, User ID,
transaction ID, and CICS system ID. Not all of these options are available for all EP adapter types. The
section displays the correct set of options for your chosen EP adapter and message format.