CICSPlex SM WUI client application data interface

The CICSPlex® SM WUI client application data interface provides access from a client application to a CICSPlex SM WUI server, and enables a client application to use a number of services.

The data interface enables a client application to connect to a WUI server to obtain data about CICSPlex SM-managed CICS® regions. In effect, the data interface uses the WUI server as gateway into CICSPlex SM. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

A workstation client connects to a Web User Interface server via an HTTP TCP/IP link using CICS Web support and the data interface. — Figure 1. Conceptual view of the use of the data interface

The data interface provides the commands shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The data interface commands
Data interface command	Function
DATA/CONNECT	Sign on to the Web User Interface Server and establish a connection with CICSPlex SM.
DATA/GET	Collect data for a query and store in result set.
DATA/GETDEF	Collect CICSPlex SM metadata objects.
DATA/FETCH	Download a number of records from a previously collected result set.
DATA/DISCARD	Discard a result set, filter, or view.
DATA/PASSTICKET	Obtain a RACF® PassTicket.
DATA/DISCONNECT	Disconnect from CICSPlex SM.

How a client application accesses WUI services

To use this data interface, a client application issues commands in the form of HTTP requests to the WUI server. The result from each request is returned in the HTTP response.

A client application can communicate with a WUI server through an HTTP proxy, provided the client implements the HTTP syntax appropriate for use through a proxy.

To obtain access to a WUI session, the client application needs to implement both the GET and POST HTTP methods.

The client application must also be able to work with cookies. For information about cookies, see the HTTP State Management Mechanism document in RFC2109, which describes how to create a stateful session with HTTP requests and responses using Cookie and Set-Cookie headers.

Level of HTTP

A client application can issue data interface commands using either HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1, both of which are supported by the CICSPlex SM WUI, but commands must be correctly formed according to the HTTP specification used.

For information about Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP/1.0 and HTTP1.1, see the Network Working Group documents RFC1945 and RFC2068 respectively at www.ietf.org/rfc/. Note that if your client application issues data interface commands to a WUI server running with SSL support enabled, your client application must also use SSL (that is HTTPS).