Creating an Enterprise Application Project

To develop components such as an Enterprise Java™ Bean module (EJB module) or to group web projects, EJBs, or both together, you can use an Enterprise Application Project.

Before you begin

Ensure that the web development tools are installed in your Eclipse IDE. For more information, see Setting up your development environment.

About this task

If you are using the IBM CICS SDK for Java or IBM CICS SDK for Enterprise Java (Liberty) in CICS Explorer® (as shown in the following instructions) or IBM Developer for z/OS (IDz), you can refer to the CICS Explorer help, which provides full details on how you can complete each of the following steps to develop and package Enterprise Applications.

If you are using a build toolchain such as Apache Maven or Gradle, you can use CICS-provided artifacts on Maven Central to define Java dependencies.

Procedure

Create a project for your application.
- CICS Explorer If you're using CICS Explorer, create an Enterprise Application Project.
- Maven For Maven users, create a Maven project. In the pom.xml file, specify <packaging>ear</packaging> and declare dependencies on CICS-provided artifacts.
- Gradle For Gradle users, create a Gradle project. In the build.gradle file, specify the following and declare dependencies on CICS-provided artifacts.
```
plugins {
    id 'ear'
}
```
Develop the components of your application. These components are typically EJB modules and Dynamic Web Projects. Add the components to your Enterprise Application Project.
For more information, see Creating an Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) project.
Create one or more CICS bundle projects to package your Enterprise Application. Add definitions and imports for CICS resources. Every CICS bundle contains an ID and version so you can manage changes in a granular way.
Optional: Add a URIMAP and TRANSACTION resource to a CICS bundle if you want to map inbound web requests from a URI to run under a specific transaction. If you do not define these resources, all work runs under a supplied transaction, which is called CJSA. These resources are installed dynamically and managed as part of the bundle in CICS.

Results

You set up your development environment, created an Enterprise Application Project, and packaged it for deployment.

What to do next

When you are ready to deploy your application, export the CICS bundle projects to zFS. The referenced projects are built and included in the transfer to zFS. Alternatively, you can follow the Liberty deployment model by exporting the application as a EAR and deploying it with an <application> element, or placing it in the drop-ins directory of a running Liberty JVM server.