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The UF Office of Information Technology Newsletter | |
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CICS TS 3.1 Enhancements | |
The newest IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/OS V3.1 (CICS TS 3.1) has been installed and is being migrated into all CNS CICS regions. This CICS migration is an upgrade from CICS TS 2.3, which has been running at this site since the end of 2003. CICS TS 3.1 went GA (General Availability) on March 25, 2005. For more information, review the CICS TS 3.1 Release Guide which is available at the softcopy links noted at the end of this article.
This newest CICS will provide increased ease of integration. This includes Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture or SOA, and enhanced Secure Socket Layer (SSL) security. CICS can now easily be a Web service provider, or Web service requestor.
For UF, use of the new and enhanced CICS WEB API commands looks good for our CICS Web-based applications, as IBM has included a new sample application, and new development tools.
Also, the use of the DOCUMENT API, and the new Channels and Containers API should provide enhanced functionality for CICS application developers. Performance improvements include enhancements to OTE (Open Transaction Environment) and additional MVS TCB exploitation.
To ensure that all existing CICS applications are running correctly in CICS TS 3.1 we want to verify the installation before any new or enhanced applications and/or functionality are tested. At the present time, everything we've tested is working correctly in CICS TS 3.1.
CICS TS 3.1 can be tested in CICSDEV1, CICSDEV2, CICSTST2, and CICSTST4. CICSPRD2 and CICSPRD4 have already been migrated to CICS TS 3.1. CICSTEST and CICSTST5 are scheduled to be migrated to CICS TS 3.1 on Tuesday, 06-06-2006, and the remaining production CICS regions are scheduled to be converted in late August, 2006.
Listed below are some useful links to find out more detailed information about CICS TS 3.
The authoritative IBM CICS TS 3.1 Information Center is available at: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/cicsts/v3r1/index.jsp
The authoritative IBM CICS TS 2.3 Information Center is available at: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/cicsts/v2r3/index.jsp
An IP restricted local copy of the IBM CICS TS 3.1 Information Center is available at: http://softserv.cns.ufl.edu:31000/
An IP restricted local copy of the IBM CICS TS 2.3 Information Center is available at: http://softserv.cns.ufl.edu:23000/
The IP restricted local z/OS softcopy documentation is available at: http://booksrv.cns.ufl.edu/
Select "CICS Collection" at the above site local CICS softcopy publications, and then "CICS Transaction Server for z/OS V3.1 Bookshelf" for CICS TS 3.1 documentation.
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