CICS and Java

If you are planning to use Java™ in your enterprise, CICS® provides the tools and runtime environment to develop and run Java applications in a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that is under the control of a CICS region. Java workloads that run in a JVM server are eligible to run on a zEnterprise® Application Assist Processor (zAAP).

Java application development

You can create modular and reusable Java applications that comply with the OSGi Service Platform. These applications are easier to port between CICS and other platforms and OSGi provides granularity around managing dependencies and versions.

You can use the Java CICS (JCICS) API to write applications that access CICS services, such as reading from files or temporary storage queues. Java applications can link to other CICS applications, and can access data in DB2® and IMS. Java applications run in JVM servers.

You can create a web presentation layer for the application by using the web tools supplied with the Liberty profile. CICS can run JSP pages and web servlets in the same JVM server as the application.

Web services in an Axis2 JVM server

You can create Java web services to work with service providers and service requesters in a heterogeneous environment. Java web services run in a JVM server and the SOAP processing is performed by Apache CXF in the Liberty JVM server or the Apache Axis2 web services engine in the JVM server. You can also use standard Java APIs and annotations to create Java web services and perform data conversion, handle XML, or work with structured data.

Java connectivity to CICS

You can use JCA (Java Connector Architecture) to connect external Java applications to CICS through CICS Transaction Gateway. JCA is a related technology for calling CICS applications from an external Java environment. The CICS applications that are called in this way can be implemented in Java, or in any other supported language.