HTTP EP adapter

The HTTP EP adapter emits events to an HTTP 1.1 compliant server by using HTTP POST in XML format for consumption by products such as IBM® Operational Decision Manager and IBM Business Monitor without using IBM MQ as your transport.

IBM Message Queue remains the primary method for emitting events from CICS; the HTTP EP adapter can be used as a less robust alternative. You can also use the HTTP EP adapter to send your XML format events to vendor products or any HTTP 1.1 compliant server.

To use the HTTP EP adapter, you must enable TCP/IP in your CICS region; you can enable TCP/IP in the CICS region by specifying TCPIP=YES in your system initialization parameters.

The HTTP EP adapter supports the following formats:

The Common base event format, which can be consumed by any product supporting the Common Event Infrastructure.
The Common base event REST format (the common base event format without the common base event envelope) which is consumable by IBM Business Monitor when using the IBM Business Monitor event emitter REST interface to receive events using HTTP.
The Decision Server Insights Event format, which can be consumed by the Decision Server Insights component of IBM Operational Decision Manager.
The WebSphere Business Events format which can be consumed by the Decision Server Events component of IBM Operational Decision Manager.

The HTTP EP adapter converts the data into one of the supported XML formats and the converted data is then sent to an HTTP 1.1 compliant server using the connection that is described in a URIMAP.

IBM Operational Decision Manager version 7 or later and IBM Business Monitor version 7 or later are prerequisites for the HTTP transports. These prerequisites apply only when using IBM Operational Decision Manager or IBM Business Monitor as your event consumer.

The HTTP EP adapter supports these emission and transactional modes. The letter x indicates a supported combination of modes.

Table 1. HTTP EP adapter emission and transactional modes
Event processing adapter	Emission mode		Transactional mode		Notes
Event processing adapter	SYNC	ASYNC	TRANS	NONTRANS	Notes
HTTP	x			x	The HTTP EP adapter cannot emit events in a recoverable way and therefore does not support synchronous, transactional event emission.
		x	x
		x		x

To configure the HTTP EP adapter, you must provide two pieces of information: the name of the URIMAP that represents the connection to the HTTP 1.1 compliant server and the XML format type that is used for sending the event data.

Important: When using the HTTP EP adapter, you must specify a URIMAP with USAGE(CLIENT) in your URIMAP definition.

For more information about URIMAP definitions and HTTP client requests from a CICS application, see URIMAP resources.
For more information about setting up your URIMAP with IBM Operational Decision Manager, see Setting up the Decision Server Events component of IBM Operational Decision Manager for the HTTP EP adapter.
For more information about setting up your URIMAP with IBM Business Monitor, see Setting up IBM Business Monitor for the HTTP EP adapter.
For more information about setting up your URIMAP with any other HTTP server, see Creating a URIMAP definition for an HTTP request by CICS as an HTTP client.

Table 2. HTTP EP adapter properties
Data element	Description
URIMAP	The name of the URIMAP that represents the connection to the server; for example, `MYURIMAP`.
FORMAT	The event format: Common Base Event REST, IBM Operational Decision Manager, and Common Base Event format.

You specify business events and the CICS EP adapters that they use by using the CICS event binding editor. For more information about adapter properties and supported formats, see Specifying EP adapter and dispatcher information.

When you use the HTTP EP adapter, the CICS event binding editor ensures that the correct schema version is used. For more information about how schema versions are identified and incremented, see Schema versions.

The DFHECEAH program, CEPH default transaction, and DFHECEPH default transaction profile are defined for you by CICS. For more information about tuning the transaction and profile definition for performance, see Improving event processing performance.

Tip: If your target system requires basic authentication or security policies when using the HTTP EP adapter, you must implement XWBSNDO and XWBAUTH user exits to provide the required credentials. For more information about XWBSNDO and XWBAUTH, see HTTP client send exit XWBSNDO and HTTP client send exit XWBAUTH.