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
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
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 you can 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
- Use this tab to choose the EXEC CICS command that you want 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 you can specify 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 you can specify 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 predicates are processed by CICS in the order specified. For
example, the first predicate is processed, then the second, and so
on.
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
- Use this tab to 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 appears.
Adapter tab
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. Use this EP adapter 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 to 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. The custom EP adapter must not carry out any other processing,
such as consumption of the event.
- WMQ Queue
- Emits events to a WebSphere® message
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 non-XML format.
- HTTP
- Emits events to an HTTP 1.1 compliant server using HTTP POST in
XML format for consumption by products such as WebSphere Business Events and WebSphere Business Monitor.
- 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 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.
- For more information about the advanced settings you can choose,
see Specifying EP adapter and dispatcher information.