Components
CICS® Configuration Manager consists of a client, a server, an agent, a repository, and a journal:
- Client
- A user interface that allows you to send commands to, and receive
responses from, the CICS Configuration
Manager server. The
client and server communicate by exchanging SOAP messages via TCP/IP
sockets.
CICS Configuration Manager is supplied with two clients: an ISPF dialog and a batch command interface. As an alternative to using the supplied clients, you can use CICS Explorer® with the CICS Configuration Manager plug-in, or you can develop your own custom clients.
CICS Explorer and the CICS Configuration Manager plug-in are available separately: they are not supplied with CICS Configuration Manager. CICS Explorer with the CICS Configuration Manager plug-in provides an Eclipse-based graphical user interface to many of the CICS Configuration Manager functions available in the supplied ISPF user interface. CICS Explorer also provides an integrated interface to various CICS functions and other CICS tools. For more information about CICS Explorer and the CICS Configuration Manager plug-in, see www.ibm.com/cics/explorer/.
For information about developing your own custom clients, see Using the SOAP API.
- Server
- A set of CICS programs that performs the actions requested by a client.
- Repository
- A VSAM key-sequenced data set (KSDS) that stores
current CICS Configuration
Manager data:
- System options
- CICS configurations
- Migration schemes
- Approval profiles
- Transformation rule sets
Transformation groups
- Change packages and related records
- Journal
- A VSAM key-sequenced data set (KSDS) that records
historical CICS Configuration
Manager data:
- Summaries of processing events, such as updates to resource definitions
- "Before" and "after" copies of CICS resource definitions that have been updated by CICS Configuration Manager
- Agent
- A CICS Configuration
Manager transaction that
can perform the following actions on active CSD-based CICS regions:
- Installation-type actions, such as install, discard, and newcopy of resource definitions
- Collection of runtime resource definitions for deployment analysis reporting
When a CICS Configuration Manager client requests one of these actions, the server uses a CICS distributed program link (DPL) to invoke the agent in that region. The agent then performs the action, such as the installation-type actions CICS CEDA INSTALL, CICS EXEC DISCARD, or CICS EXEC SET PROGRAM (specifying either NEWCOPY or PHASEIN).
This agent is required only if you want to perform actions on active CICS regions whose resource definitions are stored in a CSD file. You need to configure the agent within these CICS regions. This agent is not used for CICS regions that are managed by CICSPlex® SM; for those regions, CICS Configuration Manager uses the CICSPlex SM API to perform these actions.
The following figure shows the components of CICS Configuration Manager and how they fit into your existing system environment:

- 1
- CICS Configuration
Manager does
not require CICSPlex SM. If your system uses CICSPlex SM,
then you can use CICS Configuration
Manager to
manage resource definitions stored in CICSPlex SM
data repositories.
The CICSPlex SM agent and the CICS Configuration Manager agent are different software.
- 2
- The CICSPlex SM Web UI server plays no role in CICS Configuration Manager. It appears in this figure because, if your system uses CICSPlex SM, you may choose to install the CICS Configuration Manager server in the same CICS region as the Web UI server. Both the Web UI server and the CICS Configuration Manager server require CICS Web support; if you already have the Web UI server installed, you may choose to use the existing CICS Web support in that region for the CICS Configuration Manager server.
- 3
- The release level of CICS Transaction Server that runs the CICS Configuration
Manager server must be
the same as or later than the release levels of CICS Transaction Server that manage the CSD
files or the CICSPlex SM
data repositories you want to use with CICS Configuration
Manager. If your system
uses CICSPlex SM, then
the release level of CICS Transaction
Server that runs the CICS Configuration
Manager server
must be the same as the release level of CICS Transaction Server that runs the local
CMAS. For
an illustration of these requirements, see Figure 1.
For example, if you want to use CICS Configuration Manager to edit resource definitions in a CSD file that is used by CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, V2.3, then the CICS Configuration Manager server must be running under CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, V2.3, or later.
- 4
- The CICS Configuration
Manager server
only uses existing, proven methods to update resource definitions:
- To update resource definitions stored in CSD files,
the CICS Configuration
Manager server
uses one of the following methods, depending on the release of CICS Transaction
Server for z/OS that the CICS Configuration
Manager server is running
under:
- CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, V4.1, or earlier: the CICS Configuration Manager server uses the CICS-supplied DFHEDAP program. This is the same program used by CICS RDO transactions such as CEDA.
- From CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, V4.2: the CICS Configuration Manager server uses CICS system programming interface (SPI) commands.
The CICS Configuration Manager server dynamically allocates the DFHCSD ddname to refer to the CSD file that it needs to access. The server can access CSD files using VSAM record-level sharing (RLS) mode or non-RLS mode.
- To update resource definitions stored in CICSPlex SM data repositories, the CICS Configuration Manager server uses the CICSPlex SM API.
- To update resource definitions stored in CSD files,
the CICS Configuration
Manager server
uses one of the following methods, depending on the release of CICS Transaction
Server for z/OS that the CICS Configuration
Manager server is running
under:
- 5
- CICS Configuration Manager provides its own built-in SOAP support. However, if you run the server under CICS Transaction Server for z/OS, V2.2 or V2.3, with the SOAP for CICS feature, then CICS Configuration Manager uses that instead. For more information about the CICS Configuration Manager SOAP interface, see Using the SOAP API.