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.

About this task

You can use the SDK to create new applications, or repackage existing Java applications to comply with the OSGi specification. The OSGi Service Platform provides a mechanism for developing applications using a component model and deploying those applications to a framework as OSGi bundles. An OSGi bundle is the unit of deployment for an application and contains version control information, dependencies, and application code. The main benefit of OSGi is that you can create applications from reusable components that are accessed only through well-defined interfaces called OSGi services. You can also manage the lifecycle and dependencies of Java applications in a granular way. For information about developing applications with OSGi, see the OSGi Alliance website.

You can also use the SDK to work with dynamic web projects that include Java servlets and JSP pages. These servlets can interact with OSGi bundles, so you can create an application that has a modern web layer and business logic that uses JCICS to access CICS services.

You can use the SDK to develop a Java application to run in any supported release of CICS. Different releases of CICS support different versions of Java, and the JCICS API has also been extended in later releases to support more features of CICS. To avoid using the wrong classes, the SDK provides a feature to set up a target platform. You can define which release of CICS you are developing for, and the SDK automatically hides the Java classes that you cannot use.

The SDK help provides full details on how you can perform each of the following steps to develop and deploy applications.

Procedure

  1. Set up a target platform for your Java development. If you are developing for a Liberty JVM, select CICS TS 5.1 Runtime with Liberty, otherwise select CICS TS 5.1 Runtime. The target platform ensures that you use only the Java classes that are appropriate for the target release of CICS in your application development. If you select a CICS TS 5.1 target, you might get a warning that the target is a newer version than the current Eclipse installation. You can ignore this warning message.
  2. Create a plug-in project for your Java application development.
  3. Develop your Java application using best practices. If you are new to developing Java applications for CICS, you can use the examples that are provided with the CICS Explorer SDK to get started. To use JCICS in a Java application, you must import the com.ibm.cics.server package.
  4. Optional: Create a dynamic web project to develop your application presentation layer. You can create servlets and JSP pages in a dynamic web project. You must also update your build path to build this type of project.
  5. Package your application for deployment:
    1. Create one or more CICS bundle projects to reference your OSGi bundles and web projects. CICS bundles are the unit of deployment for your application in CICS. Put the OSGi bundles and web projects that you want to update and manage together in a CICS bundle project. You must know the name of the JVMSERVER resource in which you want to deploy the application.

      You can also add a subset of CICS resources to the CICS Bundle project, such as PROGRAM, URIMAP, and TRANSACTION resources. These resources are dynamically installed and managed as part of the application.

    2. Optional: If you want to deploy the application to a CICS platform, create an application project that references your CICS bundles. An application provides a single management point for deploying and managing the application across a CICSplex in CICS. For more information, see Packaging applications for deployment in the CICS TS 5.1 Information Center.
  6. Deploy your Java application to zFS by exporting the application project or CICS bundle projects. Alternatively, you can save the projects in a source repository for deployment.

Results

You have successfully developed and exported your application by using the CICS Explorer SDK.

What to do next

Install the application in a JVM server. If you do not have authority to create resources in CICS, the system programmer or administrator can create the application for you. You must tell the system programmer or administrator where the exported bundle is located and the name of the target JVM server. For details, see Deploying OSGi bundles in a JVM server.