CICS is an application server that delivers industrial-strength, online transaction management for critical enterprise applications. Proven in the market for over 30 years with many of the world's leading businesses, CICS enables today's customers to modernize and extend their applications to take advantage of the opportunities provided by e-business while maximizing the benefits of their existing investments.Designing and Programming CICS Applications will benefit a diverse audience. It introduces new users of IBM's mainframe (OS/390) to CICS features. It shows experienced users how to integrate existing mainframe systems with newer technologies, including the Web, CORBA, Java, CICS clients, and Visual Basic; as well as how to link MQSeries and CICS.Each part of Designing and Programming CICS Applications addresses the design requirements for specific components and gives a step-by-step approach to developing a simple application. The book reviews the basic concepts of a business application and the way CICS meets these requirements. It then covers a wide range of application development technologies, including VisualAge for Java, WebSphere Studio, and Visual Basic. Users learn not only how to design and write their programs but also how to deploy their applications.Designing and Programming CICS Applications shows how to:
- Develop and modify existing COBOL applications
- Become familiar with the CICS Java environment and write a simple Java wrapper for a COBOL application
- Develop a web front end using servlets, JSP and JavaBeans.
- Link the web front end to an existing COBOL application using CORBA
- Write a Visual Basic application to develop a customer GUI
- Link an existing COBOL application using a CICS Client ECI call
- Develop a Java application using Swing as an MQSeries Client
- Use the MQSeries-CICS bridge to access an existing COBOL application
Whether for working with thousands of terminals or for a client/server environment with workstations and LANs exploiting modern technology such as graphical interfaces or multimedia,
Designing and Programming CICS Applications delivers the power to create, modernize and extend CICS applications.
John Horswill is a member of IBM's CICS User Technology team at IBM in Hursley Park, UK. He has been involved delivering information on various platforms including OS/390, AIX, Solaris, Digital UNIX, HP and Windows NT for the past 11 years. Before joining IBM he worked in Further Education in England for many years. He graduated from London University and completed an M.Sc in applied cell science and virology at Brunel University before turning his attention to computing. Andy Krasun graduated from Oxford University, UK, with a B.A. degree and, not wishing to start work straightaway, went to take an M.Sc in numerical analysis at Dundee University in Scotland. He has worked in and around CICS since it arrived in Hursley near Winchester England in 1975 and is currently in the CICS Strategy group. He is well-known at user groups around the world for his talks on CICS application design, distributed CICS and application development. Rob Breeds is a software engineer in the CICS/ESA Data Communications Development group at IBM Hursley. He is part of the Application Development Infrastructure team, providing workstation-based development tools for forthcoming releases of CICS. He has previously worked in application development, marketing, publishing and sales roles. Mike Moynihan has worked for IBM since 1988. For the past four years he has been part of the Advanced Solutions Group in Hursley, putting together end-to-end demonstrations, using mixes of IBM's and other manufacturers' products. He has also worked on the group's Solution Kit for e-business. Becca Dunleavey joined IBM in 1995. In 1997 She joined the CICS/390 System Test Group, where she was part of the team testing CICS Transaction Server 1.3. She became team leader for the CICS Current Release System Test team in 1999, where she became involved with Designing and Programming CICS Applications. Steve Young is a Sun Certified Java Programmer working in the UK Advanced Solution Group at Hursley. He has worked on developing and showing fully functional CICS demos since joining IBM in 1998. He is quoted as saying that "Without this book I don't know where I would be today...probably at home, with more hair, lower blood pressure and a smile on my face (but without the satisfaction, of course...)." Phil Appleby joined IBM in 1986, and has worked mainly as a technical writer and editor.
