What you need to know to develop and deploy CICS Java applications
using the CICS Explorer.
Developing applications using the CICS Explorer SDK
The CICS Explorer® Software Development Kit (SDK) provides an environment for developing
and deploying Java™ applications
to CICS®, including support
for OSGi and web projects.
Setting up the target environment
Before you start to develop your application,
you must set up a target definition in Eclipse for the earliest level
of CICS your application runs in. A target definition consists of
a set of plug-ins and environment settings, for example, JCICS API,
JRE and any custom APIs you might use.
Creating a plug-in project
You create your CICS Java application as an Eclipse plug-in
project that complies with the OSGi specification. The OSGi Service
Platform provides a mechanism for developing applications by using
a component model and deploying those applications into a framework
as OSGi bundles.
Updating the plug-in project manifest file
When you develop a JCICS application, or package an existing
application in a plug-in project, you must update the project manifest
file and include a CICS-MainClass declaration.
Creating a CICS bundle project
A CICS bundle is
a collection of resources, artifacts, references, and a manifest file
that you can deploy into a CICS region
to represent all or part of an application.
Adding a project to a CICS bundle project
When you create a CICS bundle
project, the project contains only a manifest file and a properties
file. You must add details of any projects that you want to include
in the CICS bundle before you
deploy everything to zFS. You can add Java plug-in projects or dynamic
web projects to a CICS bundle
project.
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.
Developing web applications
To develop the presentation layer to a CICS application,
you can use the Liberty profile tools to create a web application
that uses Java to access CICS services.
Packaging existing applications to run in a JVM server
If you are running Java applications in pooled
JVMs, you can move them to run in a JVM server. Because a JVM server
can handle multiple requests for Java applications in the same JVM,
you can reduce the number of JVMs that are required to run the same
workload.
Creating an OSGi bundle fragment for vendor classes
If your application uses IBM or vendor classes that are
supplied with the JRE, you must create an OSGi bundle fragment to
make the classes available in the OSGi framework
Deploying a CICS bundle
You can deploy a CICS bundle
by exporting it directly to a z/OS® UNIX System Services (z/OS UNIX)
file system from CICS Explorer.
Use a BUNDLE resource to locate the bundle in zFS and dynamically
create the resources from the bundle in the CICS region.
Deploying a CICS non-OSGi Java application
The Java applications
are included in a CICS bundle
and can be deployed directly to a z/OS UNIX System Services (z/OS UNIX)
file system from CICS Explorer.
The exported bundle includes the application JAR files that are used
by CICS.
Enabling a Java security manager
By default, Java applications have no security restrictions
placed on activities requested of the Java API. To use Java security
to protect a Java application from performing potentially unsafe actions,
you can enable a security manager for the JVM in which the application
runs.
Exporting a CICS bundle project to your local file system
If you do not have authorization to deploy a bundle directly
to a z/OS file system, or you
want to back up your bundle source code, you can export the bundle
project to your local file system.
Deploying OSGi bundles in a JVM server
To deploy a Java application
in a JVM server, you must install the OSGi bundles for the application
in the OSGi framework of the target JVM server.