Workflow for application deployment

To set up a platform and create applications, follow this process.

1. Create and install a platform. You can use your platform to deploy multiple applications. If you have already set up a platform, skip to Step 2.
   1. Set up a dedicated file system in z/OS® UNIX for your platform home directory, and set up file system security and FTP security. See Creating a platform home directory in zFS.
   2. Create a CICS Platform project to describe the platform. See Creating a CICS Platform project. CICS regions with similar or identical properties can be grouped together as region types in a platform. You can edit the platform project after you create it.
   3. Export the CICS Platform project to the z/OS UNIX file system, and create a platform definition, which is a PLATDEF resource definition, to link the platform bundle to the target CICSplex. Also create any CICS regions that you require for the platform. See Deploying a CICS Platform project.
   4. Install the platform definition in the target CICSplex, and enable the platform. See Installing a platform definition and enabling the platform.
   5. Verify that your platform is available for use. See Checking the status of a platform.
2. For each application that you want to deploy on the platform, create CICS bundles that define or import the components of the application. The instructions for these tasks are in the section Working with bundles.
   1. Create one or more CICS Bundle projects to contain the resources for each component of the application. See Creating a CICS Bundle project.
   2. Define application entry points in the CICS bundles for the resources that provide access to the application. See Defining application entry points. Application entry points control users' access to the different versions of your applications, and also enable CICS to measure and control resource consumption for the tasks for your applications.
   3. Add resource definitions for the application resources to the CICS bundles. See Adding resources to a CICS bundle. These resources are dynamically created in the CICS regions when you install the application in the platform, and are managed through the CICS bundles. Applications that use the CICS resources that are supported as private resources, in combination with other resources designed for applications and with imported resources, are eligible for multi-versioning with more sophisticated management capabilities. If you need to edit the resource definitions after you have created them, see Editing resources defined in a CICS bundle.
   4. Declare any dependencies on other resources outside the CICS bundles that must be available in the platform for the application to run. Include import statements for any required resources that are not supported for multi-versioning. See Defining bundle dependencies.
3. Create policies containing policy rules to manage the applications in your platform. Policy rules describe controls or actions that can be applied to one or more application tasks that run within a platform. You can deploy a policy at the platform level to apply to all applications in the platform, or at the application level.
   1. Create one or more CICS Bundle projects to contain your policies. See Creating a CICS bundle project. A CICS bundle can contain more than one policy.
   2. Create policies and specify appropriate policy rules. See Creating a policy in a CICS Bundle project. To add additional rules, see Adding rules to a policy in a CICS Bundle project. To add custom abend codes, see Customizing the abend code in a policy rule.
4. For each application that you want to deploy on the platform, create and export an application bundle and an application binding. When you work with applications, check that the CICS Platform project for the target platform is present in your local workspace, as CICS Explorer requires this project to validate your applications and application bindings.
   1. Create a CICS Application project to package the CICS bundles that contain the application resources, dependencies, and any policies specific to the application. See Creating a CICS Application project. Include the CICS bundles that you created for the components of the application in Step 2.
   2. Create a CICS Application Binding project to specify how the CICS bundles for the application map to the region types in the platform. See Creating a CICS Application Binding project. Include any CICS bundles containing policies that you created in Step 3 and want to deploy for the application. If you prefer to deploy a policy with the platform, do not include its CICS bundle in the CICS Application Binding project, but instead follow the instructions in Adding a bundle to a CICS Platform project to add it to your platform.
   3. Export the application bundle and the application binding to the z/OS UNIX file system, and create an application definition, which is an APPLDEF resource definition, to define the application in a specific platform. See Deploying a CICS Application project.
5. Install and enable each application that you want to deploy on the platform.
   1. Install the application definition, enable the application, then make the application available for use. See Installing, enabling, and making an application available.
   2. Verify that your application is available for use. See Checking the status of an application.
   3. Verify the policy rules that apply to your application. See Querying policy rules.
6. Monitor and maintain each application in the platform.
   1. If you experience problems with your platform or applications, use the Cloud Explorer view to check on the status of the CICS regions and CICS bundles for the platform, and the CICS bundles for the application. To see more details about an installed application, including its private resources and application entry points, double-click on the application name to open it in the online application editor. See Checking the status of a platform and Checking the status of an application.
   2. To scale the capacity of your active platform up or down, or modify the architecture of your platform, to support changes in your workload, use the Cloud Explorer view to add CICS regions to region types in the platform or remove them from region types. See Adding CICS regions to a region type and Removing CICS regions from a region type.
   3. As instructed in your policies, CICS automatically monitors and responds to the behavior of the tasks for your applications. You can add and remove policies for your platform while the platform is available; see Adding a bundle to a CICS platform and Removing a bundle from a CICS platform.
   4. Use the application context data generated for your applications to monitor and measure how much resource an application is using. You can also use the information with the transaction tracking capability in the CICS Explorer to identify and diagnose application-related problems.
   5. To modify your applications, edit and reversion the CICS bundles for the components of the application, then update, reversion, and redeploy the application bundle and application binding. For applications that use resources supported for multi-versioning, you can install and make available multiple versions of your applications at the same time, on the same platform instance. See Updating applications.
7. If you no longer require an application version, or if you no longer require your platform, disable and discard the application version or the platform.
   1. If you no longer require an application version, make it unavailable, then disable and discard it. See Making unavailable, disabling, and discarding applications. When you disable and discard an application, the CICS bundles that are deployed as part of the application are also disabled and discarded from the CICS region types to which they were bound.
   2. If you no longer require a platform, disable and discard it. See Disabling and discarding a platform. When you disable and discard a platform, the CICS bundles that were installed with the platform bundle, including any policies that you deployed on the platform, are also disabled and discarded.