Working with bundles
You can use bundles to deploy applications, events, policy, and Atom feeds to your CICS® systems. CICS bundles are a unit of deployment for CICS resources that you want to manage together in a CICS region. Management bundles group related CICS bundles together for deployment and management in a CICSplex. Management bundles are installed in a CMAS, and the associated CICS bundles are installed in the CICS regions across the targeted CICSplex (or platform). You can create management bundles for an application or a platform.
About this task
To create and work with individual CICS bundles, use the task instructions in this section of the help. To create and work with management bundles for applications or platforms, use the task instructions in the section Working with platforms and applications. To create, package, and deploy CICS bundles using CICS-provided Maven or Gradle plug-in instead of CICS Explorer®, see How it works: CICS bundle deployment API. However, be noted that bundles produced by Maven or Gradle have different metadata and a different structure from the CICS bundle projects created in CICS Explorer, so they can't be edited or exported to z/FS using CICS Explorer.
For some artifacts that you can deploy to a CICS bundle, you follow a dedicated process in CICS Explorer or IBM® Developer for Z. For other artifacts, you create the resource definition directly in the CICS bundle.
- Application event or system event
- For CICS event processing,
you can use CICS Explorer to
define and deploy event bindings, capture specifications, and EP adapters
in CICS bundles. See Working with events.
System events support is deprecated. Define policy system rules instead.
- Atom feed
- To serve an Atom feed from CICS, you can use CICS Explorer to create and deploy an Atom configuration file in a CICS bundle. See Working with Atom feeds.
- Channel-based service
- Channel-based services are CICS applications that are described as components and assembled together using the Service Component Architecture (SCA) tooling in IBM Developer for Z. See Creating a channel-based service in the CICS TS 6.1.0 product documentation.
- URI:
- http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/cics/bundle/SCACOMPOSITE
- File
- A FILE resource represents a single file in a CICS system. The following file types are supported for definition in CICS bundles:
- VSAM files (including files that refer to CICS-maintained, user-maintained, and coupling facility data tables, as well as files that refer to VSAM data sets)
- Remote VSAM files
- Remote BDAM files
- JSON transform
- A JSON transform is used by an application with the linkable interface for transforming JSON. The JSON assistant uses a language structure or a JSON schema to generate the JSON binding, and also creates a bundle. When you install the BUNDLE resource, CICS dynamically creates an JSONTRANSFRM bundle part that defines where the JSON binding and schema are located.
- JVM server
- A JVMSERVER resource defines the location of the JVM profile and other options that are used to create a JVM server to run Java™ applications in a CICS region. The JVM profile for the JVM server is packaged in the CICS bundle along with the resource definition.
- Library
- A LIBRARY resource defines a dynamic concatenation of data sets containing program artifacts that make up an application or group of applications.
- OSGi bundle
- Java applications that are packaged as OSGi bundles can be deployed in CICS bundles to run in a JVM server, using the CICS Explorer Software Development Kit (SDK). See the CICS Java Developer Guide in the SDK help and Administering Java applications in the CICS TS 6.1.0 product documentation.
- URI:
- http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/cics/bundle/OSGIBUNDLE
- Package set
- You can create a definition for a PACKAGESET resource in any CICS bundle that is deployed with a platform, application, or application binding project. Use the PACKAGESET resource to define which Db2® collection to use to qualify any SQL requests made by application tasks running on a platform.
When you install a BUNDLE resource that contains a PACKAGESET resource with a CICS application or application binding, it is private to the application. CICS defines that Db2 collection to be used by all the application tasks.
When you install a BUNDLE resource that contains a PACKAGSET resource with a platform, CICS defines the Db2 collection that will be used by all application tasks that run on the platform where no specific Db2 collection is defined for the application.
See Private resources for application versions in the CICS TS 6.1.0 product documentation.
- Pipeline
- A PIPELINE resource is used when a CICS application is in the role of a Web service provider or requester. It identifies a pipeline configuration file that provides information about the message handler programs that act on a service request and on the response. The pipeline configuration file is packaged in the CICS bundle along with the resource definition. PIPELINE resources that are defined in CICS bundles can only be used with WEBSERVICE resources that are defined in CICS bundles or created dynamically by a pipeline scan.
- Policy
- A policy defines one or more rules to manage the behavior of a CICS region and to take some automated action when the conditions defined by a rule are met. CICS supports two types of policy rules: system rules and task rules. System rules can be used to monitor the state of critical system resources or the overall health of a CICS system, task rules can be used to monitor the resource utilization of individual user tasks. See Working with policies.
- URI:
- http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/cics/bundle/POLICY
- Program
- A PROGRAM resource represents a single program in a CICS system.
- Transaction
- A TRANSACTION resource specifies the functions provided by CICS for a particular invocation of an application.
- TCP/IP service
- A TCPIPSERVICE resource specifies the protocol, port, and other information for a TCP/IP connection for a CICS region.
- Web application
- Web applications that are packaged as WAR files, an EBA file, or EAR files can be deployed in a CICS bundle to run in a Liberty JVM server. See Deploying applications to a JVM server in the CICS TS 6.1.0 product documentation.
- Web service
- A WEBSERVICE resource defines aspects of the run time environment for a CICS application program deployed in a Web services setting. The web service binding file and the WSDL document or WSDL archive file can be packaged in the CICS bundle along with the resource definition. If the binding file is for a web service provider, you can also generate a PROGRAM definition for the web service and include it in the bundle.
- URI map
- A URIMAP resource matches the URI of an HTTP, Atom feed, or Web service request, and provides information to CICS on how to process the request.
- XML-based service
- XML-based services are typically web service provider or requester applications created using IBM Developer for Z, which use XML to interface with other applications and use a binding to transform the data. See Creating an XML-based service in the CICS TS 6.1.0 product product documentation.