Using the enterprise service discovery wizard, you create an import
based on a CICS® application.
You are taken step by step through the generation of the import.
Prerequisite: You should have access to a CICS server and
a COBOL program. In this example, a module already existed though you could
alternately create the module in the final page of the wizard.
You will follow the pattern you see in these steps when you create
an import component for CICS and IMS™. You can find a similar step-by-step
example but with multiple outputs in the
samples
section.
- Right-click your module and from the pop-up menu select New
> Enterprise Service Discovery. The Select an Enterprise
Service Resource Adapter page opens. If you have not imported the CICS ECI
resource adapter into your workspace, click Import Resource Adapter.
Add the resource adapter by specifying its path. All resource adapters that
come with the product are found in this path: <installdir>\Resource
Adapters. At this time, you may also select a particular name for
the connector project, a specific target server, and specify that your selection
be added to a particular EAR project. Deploying or not deploying the resource adapter in the module discusses
why you might want to add and later deploy your resource adapter with a module.
Click Finish. If asked to change perspectives, select No.

- With your resource adapter added, return to the Select
an Enterprise Service Resource Adapter page, select your resource
adapter and click Next. You may occasionally need to
wait a minute as your workspace is rebuilding in the background following
the import. If you do not see your resource adapter, close the wizard, wait
until the workspace has rebuilt, and then return to the enterprise service
discovery wizard.

- The Resource Adapter Connection Properties page
opens. You can choose between two types of managed connections. The differences
are discussed in Using connection properties specified on a server or specifying them.
If you select Use connection properties specified on server,
specify the JNDI name and optionally the J2C Authentication Data Entry (the
JAAS alias name) at the server you will be connecting to. If you select Use
the following connection properties, then you will need to provide
at a minimum the connection URL; that is, the name of the machine used as
a gateway. Complete the information and click Next.

- The Add Operations page opens. It is initially
empty.

- Click Add to define an operation and its
interaction and connection specifications. The Add operation wizard
opens. In our example, we are getting department information, so we will call
our operation getDepartmentInfo. You will need to specify
an input and an output for your operation. Begin by selecting New to
the right of the Input type field.

- The Data Import wizard requests the type of
mapping you want and the source file. Select the mapping you want for the Choose
mapping field, in our case COBOL To Business Object.
Click Browse beside the COBOL file field and
navigate to your COBOL file. Click Next.

- The Importer page opens where you specify
the data structure you will use. Platform and code page are already completed
for you, but you can change them. Clicking Show Advanced reveals
other fields you can change such as floating-point format. Click Apply beside
the Data structures field. The wizard analyzes the data structures
in the COBOL file and returns them to the pane. Select the one you want. In
our example, we selected DFHCOMMAREA. Click Next.

- The Saving Properties page opens specifying
the names, styles and folder for the properties. Note that you can choose
to change or create a new module at this point. Remember, at this point nothing
has been generated. The name will be the data structure name if you do not
change it. For example, we changed the well-known DFHCOMMAREA to DepartmentInfo,
since the structure contains department information. Specifying a folder is
recommended since otherwise all generated files will be put in the root module
folder, which will make them difficult to manage. Generation style lets you
specify a variation of generated names, as indicated by the hover help. Click Finish to
complete the specification of your operation.

- The sequence returns to the Add operation wizard
page. At this point you can also specify your output type in a similar way
to the input type. In our case, we will select the Use the same
type for output as used for input, which means the input type
will be used as the output type also. Click Finish.

- The Add Operations page opens. You could at
this point add some more operations. For this example, we will only use one.
The InteractionSpec class is shown as well as the properties for your operation,
which you can change. The Function name field specifies the program
on the CICS server
to execute. It must be completed. You may also specify a the maximum length
of the COMMAREA length. Clicking Show Advanced provides
other properties you may want to specify yourself, such as the timeout value.
Click Next.

- The Generate Artifacts page opens. You can
change or create a new module. You can specify a folder to contain the generated
files. You must enter a name in the Name field, in our case DepartmentInfoService.
At this point you can deploy the resource adapter with the module if you wish. Deploying or not deploying the resource adapter in the module discusses why you
might want to deploy your resource adapter. Click Finish.

- Your service is created and added to the module. Select your business
object beneath Data Types. The relationship of this business object
to others appears in the references view. Right-click a business object. From
the pop-up menu select Open With > Business Object Editor.
It opens in the editor. Selecting an item from the business object results
in seeing lower level information in the properties view. Business objects from data structures provides
more details on the properties view of business objects created by the wizard.
- Right-click your interface beneath Interfaces. From the
pop-up menu, select Open With > Interface Editor. The
interface opens in the interface editor. The relationship between the interface
and the service is shown in the references view.
- Right-click the name of service you created, from the pop-up menu
select Open. The assembly editor opens with an import
component icon. EIS indicates that it is created from an application on an
EIS system.

- Select the import component. In the properties view, more details
are provided. You can add or change the names and description provided. Select Details.
More details are specified including the interface name, preferred interaction
style - synchronous, asynchronous, or any - and the operations. The Qualifiers tab
may let you add a qualifier to the interface. A qualifier is a quality of
service (QoS) addition you may be able to add to the interface; for example,
a security level. However, it is determined by the creation of the service
whether one or more are present and if you are permitted to add any yourself.
The Event Monitor tab lets you monitor events at run
time using the Common Event Infrastructure (CEI) property. For example, you
might want to monitor how many times a transaction involving this service
occurred. Event monitoring can be helpful in fine tuning an application. For
example, if you monitored the transactions occurring it might point to a bottleneck
at run time.

- Select the Binding tab. The type of binding,
the resource adapter, the managed connection factory class, data type and
binding description are listed. The Connection section
contains the managed connection factory class and its properties, the Connection
Spec class and its properties. Authentication properties and Admin properties.
The Resource Adapter section contains the resource
adapter name and type. The Method Bindings section
contains the contains the interaction information. You can set ECIInteractionSpec
values such as TPNName and TranName. Binding information fields are discussed
in detail in Data bindings, function selector and generated properties.
- If you wish to test your component using the WebSphere® test
environment, see WebSphere test environment setup.
You have created a CICS service as an import component. You can find a
similar step-by-step example but with multiple outputs in the
samples
section. Compare this example with creating an import component using
a PeopleSoft system.