WHITE PAPER

MICRO FOCUS ONWEB® FOR CICSThe scalable, high-performance mainframe component of Micro Focus OnWeb®

Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS is a mainframe-resident SOA solution for CICS applications. It is fully integrated with Micro Focus’s other solutions to ensure smooth transitions during various phases of Incremental SOA initiatives.

High Performance Mainframe Resident SOA Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS (OWCICS) is a mainframe-resident SOA solution. It fully SOA enables existing CICS transactions (including those implemented with CA-Ideal) as well as common mainframe data sources such as DB2, DL/I and VSAM. OWCICS is seamlessly integrated with Micro Focus’s product suite, including Micro Focus OnWeb and Onweb Connectors to be used for leveraging assets currently residing on mainframe and other systems.

OWCICS is designed to be the scalable, highperformance mainframe resident component in enterprise SOA initiatives.

OWCICS permits the creation, deployment and invocation of standards-based Web services that represent existing CICS transactions and mainframe data sources. Web services created with OWCICS, per SOA precepts, are platform agnostic, and as such can be deployed on and invoked from any distributed platform whether it be Linux, Unix, Windows or mainframe.

Most customers should work in phases when it comes to creating reusable services on core environments (see Micro Focus Incremental SOA Whitepaper). By working in phases, customers can prototype and test SOA schemes using the ‘point-click-and-deploy’ Micro Focus OnWeb development offerings. This phased approach to SOA, however, is not a prerequisite and OWCICS can be used as a totally mainframe-centric, stand-alone solution. The high-level architecture of OWCICS is shown in figure 1.

OWCICS is tightly integrated with IBM’s CICS Transaction Server (TS) 1.3 (and greater) for z/OS (or OS/390). OWCICS can thus efficiently leverage the 3270 Bridge [TS 1.3], LINK3270 Bridge1 [TS 2.2 and greater], WebSphere MQ interface and the CICS Web Support features of CICS TS. Consequently all of the SOA enablement capabilities of OWCICS, including the mainframe-based Web server that locates and invokes OWCICS related Web services, are all achieved via software executing within CICS TS. This results in exceptional performance, scalability, resilience and security.

OWCICS supports enhanced Multi-Region Operation (MRO) with CICS TS 2.2 (or greater). Thus transactions requiring the use of the LINK3270 Bridge mechanism do not all have to be located within the same CICS region.

OWCICS supports both ‘visual’ and ‘non-visual’ CICS applications; i.e. those with a terminal interface for end user interactions as well as those designed purely for program-to-program communication. In the case of visual applications, developers can locate and capture transactions that are to be represented as Web services using the original CICS ‘green’ screens displayed within an intuitive GUI IDE. This is the same IDE used by Micro Focus customers successfully since the late 1990s. The intuitive nature of the IDE allows customers to ‘act like a user’ yet ‘work like a developer.’ In the case of OWCICS, however, screens and transactions are not identified and represented using 3270 data stream [i.e. ‘screen scraping] as with the non-mainframe Micro Focus OnWeb products. Refer to figure 2.

OWCICS, given its tight integration with CICS TS, uses the native CICS data structures. Data fields are identified with the intrinsic CICS <name::value> methodology, to represent and access all CICS transactions – irrespective of whether they occur within a visual or non-visual application. This approach is optimal for high-volume production use but is not conducive to fast, flexible and economical SOA prototyping. A much more efficient approach is to use Micro Focus OnWeb’s screen scraping feature to very quickly produce a prototype service during the exploratory stage of SOA development phase.

Once prototyped services involving CICS applications are ready for prime-time, mainframe customers can use OWCICS to create an ultra-efficient, CICSembedded solution for SOA.Oriented architecture under .NET or J2EE.

Distinctive DifferentiatorsOWCICS differentiates itself from other mainframebased CICS SOA solutions in that it offers a synergistic combination of multiple features – many of which are unique to OWCICS. They include:

Variable granularity of transactions that can be captured to create a Web service. With OWCICS there are no limitations on the type of CICS transaction that can be made into a Web service. It is even possible to combine existing transactions to create new ones -- and do so, where necessary, by omitting some fields in the original transactions.

Consistent, standardized support for all CICS applications [including those developed using CAIdeal] whether they are ‘visual’ [BMS and non-BMS] or ‘non-visual’ [i.e. so called COMMAREA applications].

Ability to capture (and combine) transactions from visual CICS applications using either a ‘drag-and-drop’ GUI IDE or intrinsic CICS data structures as used within BMS maps.

WHITE PAPER | Micro Focus OnWeb® for CICS

IBM z/OS or OS/390

DB2DL/IVSAMother

IBM CICS Transaction Server 1.3[+]

ONWEB FOR CICS

HTTP MQ

Appl. access

LINK/EXCI

Data access

CICSAppls.

OtherAppls.

Multi-Region Operation with CICS TS 2.2 [+]

IBM [or compatible]mainframe

SOAWeb Services

Invocation[SOAP or HTML/XML]

SOAWeb Services

Creation

ProcessAutomation

TCP/IP MQ

WSDLdefinitions

Web Services

CICS WebSupport MQ

BMS3270

COMMAREA

CA-Ideal

Figure 1: General architecture of Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS

WHITE PAPER | Micro Focus OnWeb® for CICS

Latitude to create a Web service representing a new ‘composite transaction’, synthesized by merging multiple ‘core’ transactions, using both the visual GUI and ‘textual’ data structure definition mechanisms to identify the underlying transactions and pertinent data fields.

Fully integrated support, via CICS TS, for mainframe security [e.g. RACF, ACF/2 etc.], client authentication and SSL-based, end-to-end transaction encryption.

Web service request/response flow minimization that rationalizes and consolidates the existing request/response sequences required by CICS transactions via standard JavaScript.

Hybrid Micro Focus OnWeb server configurations for SOA involving both OWCICS and Micro Focus OnWeb on other platforms – including Micro Focus OnWeb for iSeries to give organizations options and flexibility when deploying and developing shared services.

Option of quickly and easily prototyping SOA solutions using Micro Focus OnWeb, with ‘screen scraping’, on a non-mainframe platform and then graduating to OWCICS, exploiting the same GUI IDE, to realize the high-performance, production use implementation.

Enhanced CICS Multi-Region Operation (MRO) with CICS TS 2.2 (or greater) to eliminate the restrictions that all transactions that wish to use the LINK3270 Bridge mechanism must reside within the same Application-Owning Region (AOR).

Full support for guaranteed-delivery, asynchronous message interactions via WebSphere MQ for scenarios where customers wish to use MQ as the networking infrastructure for a SOA solution.

SOA and Mainframe CICSSOA is about the reuse of existing software assets, using a ‘run-time’ [i.e. service invocation via request/response] paradigm, to develop new enterprise applications. In this context of software asset reuse, CICS is tremendously important.

Over the last 30 years enterprises around the world have invested well over 20 trillion dollars developing, enhancing and maintaining mainframe CICS applications! Each day, more than 30 million people use one or more CICS applications – when using ATM machines, online banking, Internet stock trading or Web-based travel reservation systems. Thus on any given working day, CICS applications will process well over 30 billion transactions involving at least $1 trillion of financial dealings.

With the repeated emphasis on the ‘service’ aspect, it is often easy to forget that SOA is just the latest in a long-line of remote invocation, software component methodologies – with the key here being remote invocation (as illustrated in figure 3). Thus with any SOA solution, the goal is not to recreate but to, in real time, reuse existing business logic residing within CICS applications.

Any new mission-critical SOA application must be able to handle the same high-volumes of interactive traffic as the original ‘core’ application. For instance lets take a new Web-based trading system, deployed in a SOA, which is expected to serve 40,000 concurrent users -- with response times not exceeding 2 seconds. In this case it would not be advisable to have the services, running the new SOA application deployed on a middle tier application server. Those types of applications need to run on scalable, highperformance mainframe resident SOA enablement mechanisms for CICS, such as OWCICS.

OWCICS, as shown in figures 1 – 3, is a comprehensive, self-contained mainframe-centric SOA solution for CICS, one that is tightly integrated with CICS TS. It thus can meet the exacting

OnWebDevelopment Tools& Object builder

Identify & capture transactions visually ordefine them using CICS data structures.There is no ‘screen-scraping’ inthis mode.

Publish WSDL& Web Service

IBM z/OS or OS/390

DB2DL/IVSAMother

IBM CICS Transaction Server 1.3[+]

ONWEB FOR CICS

HTTP MQ

Appl. access

LINK/EXCI

Data access

CICSAppls.

OtherAppls.

Multi-Region Operation with CICS TS 2.2 [+]

ProcessAutomation

WSDLdefinitions

Web Services

MQ

BMS3270

COMMAREA

CA-Ideal

TCP/IP MQ

CICS WebSupport

Figure 2: Web services creation and mainframe-side deploymentwith Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS.

New, SOA-basedcomposite applicationinvoking CICS transactionsrepresented as Web Services

Platform& language

independent

New, SOA-basedcomposite application

Other mainframes or from within same mainframe

running OnWeb for CICS

SOAP, MQ or HTTP

SOAP, MQ,HTTP or EXCI

IBM z/OS or OS/390

DB2DL/IVSAMother

IBM CICS Transaction Server 1.3[+]

ONWEB FOR CICS

HTTP MQ

Appl. access

LINK/EXCI

Data access

CICSAppls.

OtherAppls.

Multi-Region Operation with CICS TS 2.2 [+]

ProcessAutomation

WSDLdefinitions

Web Services

MQ

BMS3270

COMMAREA

CA-Ideal

TCP/IP MQ

CICS WebSupport

Figure 3: SOA-based applications invoking and using Web services represent-ing CICS transactions or mainframe data source access/update with Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS .

WHITE PAPER | Micro Focus OnWeb® for CICS

demands of any high-volume, security-sensitive SOA initiative that requires extensive access to CICS or mainframe data assets. However, as a industrial-strength mainframe software utility OWCICS is not meant to be a ‘plug-and-play’ solution.

In any SOA initiative, developers and enterprises should have multiple methods of integration anddeployment. When needed, a mainframe resident solution for CICS should also have the ability to integrate information from other data sources such as SAP and JD Edwards. Using OWCICS in conjunction with the Micro Focus Onweb Connectors adapters gives these developers and enterprises the best of all worlds. OWCICS provides an unparalleled, mainframe-based run-time CICS-SOA enabler while the Onweb Connectors adapters deliver data from any packaged application.

OWCICS in Hybrid Configurations with Micro Focus OnWeb and Onweb Connectors AdaptersDespite the enormous importance of CICS and other mainframe assets with SOA initiatives, it is challenging to find an enterprise that does not rely on mission-critical applications running on other, non-mainframe server platforms. This is particularly the case when it comes to packaged applications from SAP, Oracle, Siebel, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Salesfoce.com and, in the case of IBM ‘shops’, in general, one cannot forget the popularity of System i [previously iSeries and AS/400] machines. Thus just having an exceptional CICS solution alone is never enough when it comes to large-scale, long-term SOA initiatives. Developers will invariably need Web services from nonmainframe applications.

Micro Focus OnWeb, in conjunction with the Onweb Connectors adapters, is a proven, wide-spectrum, cross-platform SOA solution that embraces all of the popular enterprise applications – including

any mainframe, System i, Linux/Unix or mini-computer application with a 3270, 5250 or VT terminal interface. The bi-directional Onweb Connectors adapters use XML-based access mechanisms to interact with target packaged applications.

The OnWeb Connectors adapter methodology, though not mainframe-based, is analogous to that of OWCICS in being a totally programmatic [i.e. non-screen scraping] SOA technology.

The Onweb Connectors adapters include adapters for mainframe resident CICS, IMS, DB2, Oracle and WebSphere MQ. This provides IT professionals with genuine choice, flexibility and options. When business logic resides within regions of the mainframe that are not accessible via direct integration methods, Micro Focus OnWeb offers 3270-based access to visual CICS applications. Therefore with Micro Focus OnWeb, IT professionals have 3 distinct, but complementary, methodologies for realizing mainframe-related SOA solutions.

The same Micro Focus OnWeb Development Tools can be used with all three approaches. Experience and expertise gained with one approach, e.g. Micro Focus OnWeb, is still relevant and valid when another approach, e.g. OWCICS, is added to the development mix. As with OWCICS, the XML Web services produced by Micro Focus OnWeb and the Onweb Connectors adapters are standards-based. Hence there is never any issues about compatibility nor interoperability when it comes to using all three of these products for realizing sophisticated SOA solutions – including the so called ‘MASHUPS’, the nascent genre of enticing, highly interactive Web applications.

Figure 4 depicts an overview of the type of hybrid, mainframe and off-mainframe, configuration possible with OWCICS, Micro Focus OnWeb and Onweb Connectors. Specific configurations that best meet the needs of a given enterprise could be considerably more complex and involve multiple instances of OWCICS,Micro Focus OnWeb or Onweb Connectors. In other instances the configuration may be simpler in that it may not require as many diverse backend connections. The bottom line is that there are no restrictions, limitations or caveats as to configuration permutations or the enterprise applications that can be included.

Figure 4 also illustrates how OWCICS can be phased-in once the overall SOA solution has been extensively prototyped, tested and validated using either Micro Focus OnWeb or Onweb Connectors. In essence developers will start off with the Micro Focus OnWeb/Onweb Connectors configuration that appears on the left-hand side of figure 4.

If the requisite CICS applications have a 3270 interface developers can use Micro Focus OnWeb, with noninvasive screen-scraping, to quickly create a prototype that can be readily modified or extended, repeatedly, ‘on-the-fly’. Down-the-road, once the new SOA application has been totally validated by end users and developers, OWCICS can be introduced as the final, high-performance, ultra-scalable CICS access mechanism.

New, SOA-basedcomposite applications

Platform & language independent

SOAP, MQ or HTTP

IBM z/OS or OS/390

DB2DL/IVSAMother

IBM CICS Transaction Server 1.3[+]

ONWEB FOR CICS

HTTP MQ

Appl. access

LINK/EXCI

Data access

CICSAppls.

OtherAppls.

Multi-Region Operation with CICS TS 2.2 [+]

ProcessAutomation

WSDLdefinitions

Web Services

MQ

BMS3270

COMMAREA

CA-Ideal

TCP/IP MQ

CICS WebSupport

OnWeb

Linux, AIX, i5/OS or Windows

OnWeb

Unix/Linux, Windows & minicomputers

PackagedApplications

System i

Librados

Programmatic,API-based access

mainframe

WSDLdefinitions

WebServices

mainframe

OnWebConnectors

Figure 4: Micro Focus OnWeb for CICS in a hybrid configuration with Micro Focus OnWeb and Onweb Connectors to provide SOA applications unparalleled access to software assets from all major enterprise applications.

WHITE PAPER | Micro Focus OnWeb® for CICS

Programmatic Access to CICS and Process AutomationOWCICS resides alongside the CICS applications that it supports. In SOA projects that require high performance and stability, it does not make sense to use the terminal interface to interact with the CICS applications – even in the case of CICS applications that only have a 3270 interface. This has to do with the CICS TS mechanism for providing 3270 I/O capability to CICS applications and its ability to scale and perform beyond standard terminal emulation use. Additionally, to avoid CICS programmers having to master the arcane intricacies of 3270 data stream processing, CICS includes a logical, high-level 3270 interface known as Basic Mapping Support (BMS).

BMS provides a data structure oriented I/O mechanism where the corresponding screen layouts, with their various fields, are represented by easy-to-follow screen maps. BMS isolates CICS programmers from having to understand and deal with 3270 data stream with its write control characters (WCCs), AID codes, bitencoded attribute bytes and an extremely dated (and totally nonintuitive) 6-bit screen addressing scheme. Consequently a very large percentage of visual CICS applications rely on BMS rather than including their own support for 3270 data stream processing.

In SOA projects, it is extremely important to use integration methods that do not rely on screen information because any changes to the 3270 application screen might result in a broken service.

Using integration methods that do not rely on screen information is extremely important in SOA projects. Using screen based integration methods means that any change to the 3270 application screen will result in a broken service. OWCICS eliminates this by providing integration methods, such as BMS, that are not affected by 3270 screen design changes.

OWCICS interacts with visual CICS applications using the programmatic ‘3270 Bridge’ mechanism provided by CICS TS. In CICS TS 2.2 (and later) this mechanism is referred to as ‘LINK3270 Bridge’, while it is called just ‘3270 Bridge’ in earlier versions. These ‘3270 Bridge’ schemes are softwarebased, virtual 3270 terminal interfaces implemented within CICS TS. Using this mechanism OWCICS can interact with all visual CICS applications programmatically. In the case of applications that use BMS, both ‘3270 Bridge’ mechanisms permit logical-level interaction based on the BMS data structures – without the need for any intervening 3270 data processing. OWCICS exploits this when dealing with all BMS-based CICS applications.

When dealing with non-visual CICS applications [i.e. COMMAREA applications] OWCICS, per standard CICS program-to-program communications conventions, uses the standard CICS TS LINK/EXCI interface. The bottom line here is that OWCICS only uses standard CICS TS provided programmatic interfaces to deal with any and all CICS applications irrespective of whether they are visual or non-visual applications.

Process automation, mentioned on page 10 and shown in all of the figures, is a value-added feature of OWCICS that is made possible by the total programmatic nature of its interactions with CICS applications.

Process automation involves the intelligent, proactive management of the request/response flows required by target CICS applications. Many CICS applications, in particular those developed purely for 3270 access, tend to rely on ‘chatty’ interactive dialogues, with many acknowledgements and confirmations, for their transaction processing. In general, these dialogues, which involve sequences of requests and responses (referred to as a ‘bracket’ in SNA networking), are not optimum for programmatic interactions. Furthermore, OWCICS permits the creation of composite transactions – i.e. a new transaction made up of elements from multiple underlying transactions. The users of these new transactions need to be shielded from the request/response sequences required by the original underlying transactions. They, instead, expect a clean, request/response sequence specific to the new composite transaction.

OWCICS’s process automation is implemented using mainframe JavaScript. It enables OWCICS to effectively and efficiently intervene and control the data flows that take place between the new SOA applications and the target CICS applications – as shown in figure 5. Using JavaScript, OWCICS can present SOA applications with a logical request/response sequence that corresponds to their requirements – rather than forcing the new SOA applications to conform to the old and inefficient I/O schemes of the CICS applications. It is a genuine winwin scenario in that there are no changes required to the CICS applications.

IBM z/OS or OS/390

IBM CICS Transaction Server

ONWEB FOR CICS

HTTP MQ

Appl. accessProcessAutomation

WSDLdefinitions

Web Services

CICS WebSupport MQ

CICSAppls.

TCP/IP MQ

SOAP, MQ or HTTP

1 XML-based service request with 1 response --independent of the number of internal request/response interactions that occur between OnWeb for CICS and the target CICS application

Figure 5: beFtwigeeunr SeO 5A :a pMpliiccartoio nFso acnud sta OrgnetW CICeSb a pfpolirc aCtiIoCnSs.’ powerful process automation minimizes the request/response flow between SOA applications and target CICS applications.

WHITE PAPER | Micro Focus OnWeb® for CICS

Bottom LineOWCICS is a comprehensive, mainframe-resident SOA solution for CICS applications (including those developed with CA-Ideal) as well as popular mainframe data sources such as DB2, VSAM and DL/I. OWCICS is a programmatic product that relies on standard CICS TS program-to-program mechanisms such as Link3270 Bridge and LINK/EXCI for all of its interactions with CICS applications. OWCICS differentiates itself from other mainframe-based CICS SOA schemes in its support for transactions of variable granularity, the ability to create new composite transactions, process automation and its ultra-flexible options for capturing transactions.

What really sets OWCICS apart from others is the integration with the entire Micro Focus product line including the Onweb Connectors adapters, enabling OWCICS to become the high-performance CICS interface for a global SOA solution that embraces all types

of enterprise applications – irrespective of the platform they run on. Thus developers can use the same software development methodology to create both CICS and non-CICS Web services. Moreover, they can use Micro Focus OnWeb, with screen-scraping.

For additional information please visit: www.microfocus.comCopyright © Micro Focus (IP) Limited 2009. All rights reserved. The software and information contained here in are proprietary to, and comprise valuable trade secrets of, Micro Focus (IP) Limited,

which intends to preserve as trade secrets such software and information. This software is an unpublished copyright of Micro Focus and may not be used, copied, transmitted, or stored in any

manner. This software and information or any other copies thereof may not be provided or otherwise made available to any other person. sDSMFOW1209

Acronyms & Selected Glossary

Adapter XML-based, bidirectional, programmatic backend connector to EISs.

BMS CICS Basic Mapping Support permit development of 3270 applications without having to process 3270 data stream.

CICS IBM’s Customer Information Control System.

CRM Customer relationship management.

ERP Enterprise Resource Planning – now a generic term to describe all the mission-critical, business-related IT applications essential for running a contemporary corporation.

EXCI External CICS interface.

GUI Graphical user interface.

HR Human resources.

IDE Integrated development environment.

SCM Supply chain management.

SOA Service-oriented architecture, espousing software development based on the run-time reuse of existing software functionality contained within existing application suites.

Software Services Mechanism for the reuse of existing software functionality whereby one software entity calls another, which already contains the requisite functionality and asks it to perform the necessary processing on behalf of the calling entity.

Web Services Strategic, standards-based software services methodology that is totally XML-centric.

WSDL Web Services Description Language - XML derivative that defines the high-level functionality of a Web service, in terms of its external I/O interface, and to describe how that Web service can be accessed over the Web.

XML Platform and programming language independent scheme for sharing data among applications and corporations in an unambiguous, consistent and extensible manner through the use of mutually understood vocabularies.

About Micro FocusMicro Focus, a member of the FTSE 250, provides innovative software that allows companies to dramatically improve the business value of their enterprise applications. Micro Focus Enterprise Application Modernization and Management software enables customers’ business applications to respond rapidly to market changes and embrace modern architectures with reduced cost and risk.