CICS Explorer, z/OS Explorer, and Eclipse

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CICS Explorer® is a CICS® system management tool that is based on IBM® Explorer for z/OS® (z/OS Explorer), an Eclipsed-based integration platform.

CICS Explorer provides CICS functions on top of z/OS Explorer and Eclipse. Eclipse provides the underlying workbench and z/OS Explorer provides z/OS related functions, such as system connections, the z/OS perspective, and some z/OS views. The following diagram shows the hierarchical relationships of them.

Relationships between CICS Explorer, z/OS Explorer, and Eclipse
Eclipse, z/OS Explorer, and CICS Explorer are packaged as part of the Aqua 1  release train of compatible Eclipse plug-ins. Each version of the release train is based on a different version of Eclipse (see Table 1). You can also install CICS Explorer outside of the release train, using Eclipse Marketplace.

 1  Aqua refers to IBM Explorer for z/OS Aqua.

Eclipse

Eclipse is a platform for building and deploying client applications where most of the data is manipulated via client applications rather than the server. Through Eclipse, you can deploy native graphical user interface (GUI) applications to various desktop operating systems. CICS Explorer is one of such GUI applications and runs on the Microsoft Windows, Linux®, and macOS operating systems.

Eclipse provides the basic user interface to z/OS Explorer and hence CICS Explorer - the workbench, a graphical multi-window environment built into Eclipse.

If you are not familiar with using Eclipse, see the Eclipse Workbench User Guide for further information.

For more information about Eclipse, see eclipse.org.

z/OS Explorer

z/OS Explorer is an application built on Eclipse and provides the framework to manage your system connections, your z/OS artifacts, and projects and their resources. You can build other tools on the z/OS Explorer platform to manage various z/OS subsystems, for example, CICS Explorer to manage CICS.

Because CICS Explorer is based on z/OS Explorer, it leverages some functions provided by z/OS Explorer. For example, it uses the z/OS Explorer Host Connections view to provide connections to CICS systems.

For more information about z/OS Explorer, see Overview of IBM Explorer for z/OS in IBM Explorer for z/OS documentation.

CICS Explorer

CICS Explorer is a system management tool for CICS that is based on z/OS Explorer and Eclipse. It connects to either a CICS TS for z/OS system, or a CICS TS for VSE/ESA system.

CICS Explorer provides a way to manage one or more CICS systems, a view of some CICSPlex® SM functions in CICS TS, and a platform for the integration of future CICS Tools. When connected to a z/OS system, CICS Explorer also provides an intuitive and secure way to view and edit z/OS data sets and zFS files, submit JCL, and view output and job logs.

CICS Explorer consists of three features:
  • CICS Explorer, for management of CICS resources and resource definitions, business events, platforms and applications, CICS policies, and workloads.
  • The preinstalled IBM CICS SDK for Java™, which provides support to develop Java applications with the JCICS API to run in any supported release of CICS. It is included in CICS Explorer.
  • IBM CICS SDK for Enterprise Java (Liberty), which provides support to develop web applications that can run in a Liberty profile server in CICS TS. The SDK is provided as a separate feature that you can install with CICS Explorer, or add later. In Aqua 3.2, the SDK includes a subset of the WebSphere® Developer Tools (WDT) to support Liberty application development and enable export of OSGi application projects in EBA format. But as of Aqua 3.3, support for WDT is removed.
For more information, see Table 1.