Creating a CICS Application project

A CICS® Application project defines an application bundle. An application bundle is a type of management bundle that describes a CICS application, including the application name, description, and version. The application bundle references the CICS bundles that contain the application resources, dependencies, and any CICS policies relating to the application.

Before you begin

Ensure that the CICS bundle projects that you want to include in the application are available. CICS bundle projects must have an ID and a version number to be included in an application bundle. CICS bundle projects that were created for releases before CICS Transaction Server Version 5 Release 1 did not have an ID and a version number. If you want to include these CICS bundle projects, use the CICS Bundle Manifest Editor in the CICS Explorer® to add an ID and version number to the projects.

A CICS bundle can be installed in CICS regions by only one application or platform. You cannot include the same CICS bundle in other applications that are installed in the same CICS regions in the platform, and you cannot add it to the platform. If your application requires a resource that is in a CICS bundle that has been installed in the target region type in the platform, create a new CICS bundle project. Declare the resource as a dependency for the new CICS bundle, by specifying an import in the manifest file. Then include the new CICS bundle project in your application project. For instructions to declare a resource as a dependency, see Defining bundle dependencies.

About this task

You can reference one or many CICS bundles in an application bundle. By packaging your application in this way, you can deploy an application and its bundles as a single entity to CICS, making it easier to update and manage the application in CICS.

The information contained in a CICS Application project is used when managing multiple versions of an application in the CICS Explorer. If you modify the application, you can increment the version in the application descriptor when you repackage the application.

Procedure

  1. Open the CICS Cloud perspective.
  2. In the Project Explorer view, right-click in the window and click New > Project to open the New Project wizard.
  3. Expand the CICS Resources folder, click CICS Application Project and click Next.
  4. In the Project Name field, enter a name for the project. The Application properties section of the wizard is automatically populated, but you can edit the name, description, and version if required.
  5. Click Next.
  6. Select the CICS bundle projects that you want to include in the application.
  7. Click Finish to create the project.

Results

The Application project is created. The project contains a META-INF folder that has three XML files: You cannot edit the application descriptor after you have created the project.
Note: When you have created and deployed your application project using the CICS Explorer, you must ensure proper management of the project source. The application project cannot be reconstructed from the exported data in zFS, and a failure of your workstation might cause the data to be lost. Ensure that your project is checked into a source code management system. When you use a source code management system that integrates with Eclipse, you can check projects in and out while you are working in the CICS Explorer.

What to do next

Create an Application Binding project to define how the application bundle is deployed in the platform.