Interacting with the web is no longer an option. IBM has implemented a number of facilities in its CICS product to facilitate the integration of traditional CICS applications to the Internet. This is a process that started with the implementation of CICS/TS 1.3. CICS/TS 3.2 has continued this trend; today, CICS applications can talk to web browsers just as well as they can talk to web servers; with the introduction of web services and SOAP, they can also talk to UNIX and .NET platforms. All in all, CICS/ST 3.2 is now an important player in implementing Service Oriented Architecture in your organization.

This course will concentrate on the new facilities implemented in CICS/TS 3.2. We will discuss HTTP 1.1 support, CICS transactions acting as clients in a CICS/Web scenario, XML, SOAP and web services.

Programmers, system programmers, system architects and system analysts responsible for putting a CICS/Web applications together. There are 5 exercises which will require a little bit of programming; all exercises will be using COBOL program skeletons.

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Describe the components of a web service
• Deploy web services for requester and provider applications
• Use CICS/HTTP client capabilities to call server programs
• Describe how to integrate your applications in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Use the Web Services Assistant utilities
• Develop applications which will be sending/receiving chunked or pipelined messages
• Use CICS/API commands to invoke a web service and manage SOAPFAULTS
• Describe the Small Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
• Understand XML basics
• Understand the usage of the URIMAPs, Web Service and PIPELINE definitions
• Describe, define and configure CICS PIPELINEs
• Use CICS facilities to debug programs using this environment
• Understand the usage of Channel Containers to carry information from program to program

• Introduction
• HTTP 1.1 support
• Web Service, SOAP and XML
• CICS as a Web Service Provider
• CICS as a Web Service Requester
• CICS CHANNEL CONTAINERS
• Message Processing
• Security

A good knowledge of the standard CICS/API and Web technologies basics are required.