Working with platforms, applications, and policies

You can use the CICS® Cloud perspective and the Cloud Explorer view to work with platforms, applications, and policies in CICS.

About this task

  • A platform provides a set of services to applications. The platform is a simple layer of abstraction to decouple applications from the underlying topology of CICS regions. A platform contains one or more region types, each of which contains one or more CICS regions.
  • An application is packaged and deployed on a platform as a single resource. The application is managed as a single entity throughout its lifecycle, making CICS application management faster, easier, and less error prone. Application resources can be dynamically installed across the region types in the platform, and removed or updated as required.
  • A policy provides dynamic management of both applications and platforms. Policies manage the behavior of user tasks. They contain a set of rules that can apply to both applications and platforms, so that you can limit and control the amount of resources that a task can acquire.

Using the CICS Cloud perspective, you can create, deploy, and administer platforms, applications, and policies in bundles. Platforms and applications are defined in platform bundles and application bundles, which are types of management bundle. Policies are defined in CICS bundles.

  • Workflow for application deployment
    To set up a platform and create applications, follow this process.
  • Using editors for platforms, applications, and policies
    Use editors to work with your platform projects, application projects, application binding projects, and CICS bundle projects after you create them.
  • Working with platforms
    To set up a platform where you can deploy applications, you create and deploy a CICS Platform project, and use a platform definition to install the platform in a CICSplex. You can troubleshoot, modify, or discard an installed platform.
  • Working with applications
    To deploy an application on a platform, create an application project and an application binding project to package the application for deployment, and use an application definition to install the application. You can troubleshoot, update, and discard installed applications.
  • Working with policies
    To create a policy you must define the rules, and package the policy in a CICS bundle. You can deploy the policy with a platform or application, or deploy it separately. You can define one or more policies in a CICS Bundle project. By packaging your policy in this way, you can deploy your policies as a single entity to CICS, making it easier to update and manage the policy in CICS.
Parent topic: Tasks