Re: I have a copy of 2.1

Post #145,948 by dmarker 3/12/04 7:08:00 PM Reply	Re: I have a copy of 2.1 I am doing it because no one else in the company said it could be done. We had been having some serious failures with our order handling OS/2 servers. The original software was written using OS/2 TE/2 (Term Emu /2) and REXX scripts - I happen to be very comfortable with REXX & async programming so because it is deemed strategic to solve this problem it has fallen in my lap as a do it if I want to job even though I am the company's Principal Tech Architect. Same is occuring with the company's mainframe, hardly anyone understands it any more (CICS VSE). They had a plan to decommission it but the people behind this great move failed to grasp why the m/f was so efficient & they failed to convert its processing to Unix servers running peoplesoft (another great story there). So I have been given the ok by CIO to install CICS SOAP support so we can turn mainframe into a Web Services enabled push/pull server (at the moment it is only used for pull processing of orders). Other software (connect direct from Stirling commerce running on HPUX) is used for the push processing of output from the m/f. Installing CICS SOAP server allows us to junk a complete system that they spent a year developing, that provided an integration hub to link all other systems to the m/f. This hub used JAM (Java Access to m/f) running on WebLogic & using SNA comms (again a past expertise I had & they have no one who understands it any more). By putting SOAP (Web Svcs) on CICS we can use tcp/ip as the main comms conduit & junk the SNA links as I am the one who keeps geeting dragged in to sort out their SNA messes. The OS/2 conversion is my contribution to fixing the front-end order taking component of the whole system. Once that is stablised we will ook at how we can modernise the whole thing. Anyway Ross, it would be absolutely great to have someone like yourself here to work with on this stuff. The skill levels (and attitudes) of our HPUX admins is deplorable. Is matched only by our mainframe sysprog. Doug M
Post #145,977 by broomberg 3/12/04 9:48:31 PM Reply	CICS SOAP More info please. I'm wandering the IBM site but I want your viewpoint. What are you using it for? Can I invoke CICS transaction via a SOAP call from the Perl program on a Linux box? Do the CICS applications need to be changed or is it a matter of setting up the SOAP Object map to them? What do I need to know?
Post #145,985 by dmarker 3/12/04 10:45:48 PM Reply	Re: CICS SOAP - YES YES YES IBM have two SOAP Server implementations. One for VSE (comes as standard in VSE 2.7) The other is (or will be for) MVS). Because we use VSE I haven't investigated MVS availability but was told by a former IBM workmate (now IBM Australia's CICS strategist) that MVS Soap server for CICS would come out this year 9 months ahead of original schedule. The bottom link may be the best starting point - it seems to cover both. IBM's VSE 2.7 SOAP Announcement letter [link\|http://www-306.ibm.com/fcgi-bin/common/ssi/ssialias?infotype=an&subtype=ca&appname=Demonstration&htmlfid=897/ENUS203-043\|http://www-306.ibm.c...d=897/ENUS203-043] PDF doc [link\|http://www-3.ibm.com/common/ssi/rep_ca/3/897/ENUS203-043/ENUS203-043.PDF\|http://www-3.ibm.com...3/ENUS203-043.PDF] IBM CICS SOAP HOMEPAGE [link\|http://www-306.ibm.com/software/htp/cics/soap/supportpac/index.html\|http://www-306.ibm.c...ortpac/index.html] Reason IBM call it SOAP Server & not Web Services server is because they don't use wsdl & thus it can't be called Web Services (officially). Reason they don't use wsdl is because the SOAP server takes any format of input (puts the contents of the SOAP package into TS - invokes a transaction & passes pointer to the TS to it. The Transaction must know what format the message is in. SOAP Server has two addins that assist, one converts from Ascii to ebcdic the other parses the xml & places it into a COMMAREA I believe you can do everything you want to per your post. Doug Marker
Post #146,175 by dmarker 3/14/04 7:48:17 PM Reply	ALL you ever wanted to know about CICS SOAP .... These links are very informational. In particular look at the animated tutorial (on-line & no registration required). The 3 red books can be downloaded by right clicking the pdf link & saving on your local computer. The books are referenced from the last page of the tutorial. They cover how you can use Websphere App Dev to generate the CICS side using cobol (or PL/1) copybooks. This tool can also generate client code from the same). Cheers Doug Marker
Post #146,308 by broomberg 3/15/04 4:55:31 PM Reply	Don't want to use Webshere I want an app outsite the MF to initiate a CICS transaction. What is the least amount of stuff I need to do on the MF side to enable it?
Post #146,345 by dmarker 3/15/04 6:44:48 PM Reply	Re: Don't want to use Webshere You need to install the CICS SOAP Module (free). Configure it (pick an ip addr & port) Read up on how the m/f handles the incoming SOAP message - 1) Parses the XML 2) Converts it to Ebcdic from ascii 3) Invokes identified cics transaction & passes it a Temp Stge (TS) pointer where the XML got mapped into ebcdic data format 4) The cics tran then can do what ever it wants (such as invoke another tranid based on the contents of the XML). The redbooks linked to describe all of this. The interactive demo shows it in pictorial form. Websphere is only needed for folks like us who want to use it to convert Cobol copybooks into Cics Soap enabled transactions. You can write the client in any language you like provding it can send a Soap message to the port on the m/f that you have CICS SOAP listening on. Every where you read websphere, you need to figure out how to do that in whatever software you have. Good luck
Post #146,393 by broomberg 3/15/04 8:57:33 PM Reply	Thanks
Post #147,080 by broomberg 3/19/04 1:15:31 PM Reply	DOA We would need to upgrade our CICS version to use it. Ain't happening in my lifetime. Thanks anyway.
Post #145,983 by deSitter 3/12/04 10:32:27 PM Reply	Re: I have a copy of 2.1 I don't know what your immigration laws are, but I will happily relocate if I can be given a course in funnel web spider avoidance (not kidding about the former, only half-kidding about the latter :). All I really need to live is access to bookstores, the Internet, the occasional shiela to chat up over a cold one and some work to do. If you need someone to spend all his time on legacy systems migration, I'm probably a good choice. -drl

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