IBM Support

Creating REST APIs from RBD generated COBOL programs

White Papers


Abstract

Rational Business Developer is used to simplify the technical aspect of writing the code in Cobol. As the market is evolving, we need to use the functionality of RBD generated code through REST API using the Zos Connect EE tool. This paper details the different approaches possible for various requirement scenarios.

Content

Introduction

IBM Business Developer (RBD) allows business developers to use the REST API functionality and use the CICS as a service or as a service provider. The EGL generated Cobol is connected through CICS and a Zos Connect EE tool. The Cobol program can be called using the Rest API to see the required output details on the screen. The purpose of this document is to share information about the creation of archive files (SAR, AAR) from the API Toolkit, which will be used to send requests and capture the response.

image 12698
The scenarios described in this paper explain how to make a connection to the EGL generated Cobol program through CICS using Zos Connect EE


Prerequisites 
  • IBM Rational Business Developer (RBD). 
  • Zos Connect Enterprise Edition.
  • Knowledge of developing using EGL and RBD. 
  • Knowledge of generating the COBOL programs from EGL.
  • IBM WebSphere Liberty server (V3).
Part – 1 (COMMAREA-CICS as Service)
1.    Purpose
The purpose of this section is to describe the setup of ZOS Connect EE tool to connect with the EGL generated programs.
2.    CICS Region Setup
The transaction CSMI (Which is a mirror transaction) is IBM provided, with a TWA size of 0. CSMI is a default transaction called by Zos to connect with the CICS environment. But our EGL generated code needs a TWA size of 1024 to connect with CICS. To satisfy this requirement, we need to create a mirror transaction of CSMI with TWA size of 1024. 
In further steps, the CSMI transaction would be overwritten by a mirror transaction created while creating a SAR file.
For Example, We have created a mirror transaction ZSMI.

 image 12699
Provide the created mirror transaction to overwrite the transaction CSMI while creating the sar file in the configuration tab.
image 12700
3.    EGL Program:
To connect to the EGL generated Cobol program, the program needs to be created as a sub program in RBD rather than the main program because the sub program will capture the value passed through Zos connect and can return the response too.
Part – 2 (Channel-CICS as Service):

We have tried to achieve this using channel and container, but when creating a sub program, the values are not captured into the program. When creating the main program, we are not getting any get and put statement either, which also doesn’t capture the value passed through Zos connect. We need to spend more time and create a POC on the same.
Part – 3 (COMMAREA-CICS as Service Provider):
POC needs to be created.
Part – 4 (Channel-CICS as Service Provider):
POC needs to be created.
 

[{"Type":"MASTER","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB35","label":"Mainframe SW"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU058","label":"IBM Infrastructure w\/TPS"},"Product":{"code":"SSMQ79","label":"Rational Business Developer"},"ARM Category":[{"code":"a8m0z0000000BB1AAM","label":"Rational Business Developer"}],"ARM Case Number":"","Platform":[{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"},{"code":"PF033","label":"Windows"}],"Version":"9.7.0"}]

Document Information

Modified date:
12 July 2022

UID

ibm16602601

Page Feedback