Packaging applications for deployment
After you develop a CICS® application, you can use the CICS Explorer® to package it for deployment on a platform. Using these tools, you can define the application dependencies and the CICS resources that comprise the application.
About this task
To package an application, you create CICS bundles for each application component, and an application bundle that groups them together and provides lifecycle management. Each CICS bundle contains the resources for a component of the application, and is installed in a CICS region during the application deployment process. The application bundle is a type of management bundle that describes the application, including its name and version information. This management bundle references the CICS bundles that contain the dependencies and resources for the application. All the application resources are installed and managed together.
In the CICS bundles, you declare application entry points for the application. Application entry points identify the resources that are access points to an application, and control users' access to different versions of an application that is deployed on a platform. When the application is accessed through its application entry points, the CICS regions where it is deployed generate application context data for management and monitoring of your application.
You also create an application binding to define how the application is deployed on the target platform. The application binding maps each CICS bundle for the application to one or more CICS region types in the target platform.
- PROGRAM resources defined in CICS bundles that are part of the application
- LIBRARY resources defined in CICS bundles that are part of the application
- Policies
- Statements of application entry points
- Any resource that is defined as a dependency, or import, for the application
With multi-versioning, you can install multiple versions of the application, at the same time, on the same platform instance, and make new versions available to users without service interruption. Other resources may be involved with multi-versioned applications if you manage the resources appropriately to avoid resource name clashes between different versions of the application. For more information on multi-versioning and the advantages of structuring your application so that it is eligible for multi-versioning, see Multi-versioning for applications deployed on platforms.
When you are ready to deploy the application on a platform, you export the application bundle and application binding to the platform home directory in zFS. You also create an application definition, which is a CICSPlex® SM APPLDEF resource definition that points to the application bundle in the platform home directory.
You use the Project Explorer view in the CICS Cloud perspective in the CICS Explorer to package an application for deployment. For full details about each of the following steps, see Working with applications in the CICS Explorer product documentation.
Procedure
Results
What to do next
Use the application definition to install the application in CICS, then make it available. Making the application available makes the application entry points, and therefore the resources that they control for the application, available to callers. For details, see Installing an application on a platform.