Smarter Banking With Cics Transaction Server

It goes without saying that 2009 was a year of unprecedented change in global banking. The challenges that financial institutions are facing require them to cut costs but also to regain trust and improve the service that they provide to an increasingly sophisticated and demanding set of customers. In the past, siloed and rigid IT systems often inhibited banks in their attempts to re-engineer their business processes. The IBM® smarter banking initiative highlights how more intelligent software can be used to significantly improve the end-to-end integration of banking processes. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we aim to show how software technologies, such as SOA, Web 2.0 and event driven architectures, can be used to implement smarter banking solutions. Our focus is on CICS® Transaction Server, which is at the heart of most bank's core banking implementations.

In this IBM® Redbooks® publication, we discuss CICS®, which stands for Customer Information Control System. It is a general-purpose transaction processing subsystem for the z/OS® operating system. CICS provides services for running an application online where, users submit requests to run applications simultaneously. CICS manages sharing resources, the integrity of data, and prioritizes execution with fast response. CICS authorizes users, allocates resources (real storage and cycles), and passes on database requests by the application to the appropriate database manager, such as DB2®. We review the history of CICS and why it was created. We review the CICS architecture and discuss how to create an application in CICS. CICS provides a secure, transactional environment for applications that are written in several languages. We discuss the CICS-supported languages and each language's advantages in this Redbooks publication. We analyze situations from a system programmer's viewpoint, including how the systems programmer can use CICS facilities and services to customize the system, design CICS for recovery, and manage performance. CICS Data access and where the data is stored, including Temporary storage queues, VSAM RLS, DB2, IMSTM, and many others are also discussed.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the new channels and containers support in IBM Customer Information Control System (CICS®) Transaction Server V5.2. The book begins with an overview of the techniques used to pass data between applications running in CICS. This book describes the constraints that these data techniques might be subject to, and how a channels and containers solution can provide solid advantages alongside these techniques. These capabilities enable CICS to fully comply with emerging technology requirements in terms of sizing and flexibility. The book then goes on to describe application design, and looks at implementing channels and containers from an application programmer point of view. It provides examples to show how to evolve channels and containers from communication areas (COMMAREAs). Next, the book explains the channels and containers application programming interface (API). It also describes how this API can be used in both traditional CICS applications and a Java CICS (JCICS) applications. The business transaction services (BTS) API is considered as a similar yet recoverable alternative to channels and containers. Some authorized program analysis reports (APARs) are introduced, which enable more flexible web services features by using channels and containers. The book also presents information from a systems management point of view, describing the systems management and configuration tasks and techniques that you must consider when implementing a channels and containers solution. The book chooses a sample application in the CICS catalog manager example, and describes how you can port an existing CICS application to use channels and containers rather than using COMMAREAs.

The service-oriented architecture (SOA) style of integration involves breaking an application down into common, repeatable services that can be used by other applications (both internal and external) in an organization, independent of the computing platforms on which the business and its partners rely. In recent years CICS® has added a variety of support for SOA and now provides near seamless connectivity with other IT environments. This IBM® Redbooks® publication helps IT architects to select, plan, and design solutions that integrate CICS applications as service providers and requesters. First, we provide an introduction to CICS service enablement and introduce the architectural choices and technologies on which a CICS SOA solution can be based. We continue with an in-depth analysis of how to meet functional and non-functional requirements in the areas of application interface, security, transactional scope, high availability, and scalability. Finally, we document three integration scenarios to illustrate how these technologies have been used by customers to build robust CICS integration solutions.

This completely refreshed IBM Redbooks® publication provides a detailed introduction to the latest capabilities for business event processing with IBM® CICS® V5. Events make it possible to identify and react to situations as they occur, and an event-driven approach, where changes are detected as they happen, can enable an application or an Enterprise to respond in a much more timely fashion. CICS event processing support was first introduced in CICS TS V4.1, and this IBM Redbooks® publication now covers all the significant enhancements and extensions which have been made since then. CICS Transaction Server for z/OS provides capabilities for capturing application events, which can give insight into the business activities carried out within CICS applications, and system events, which give insight into changes in state within the CICS system. Application events can be generated from existing applications, without requiring any application changes. Simple tooling allows both application and system events to be defined and deployed into CICS without disruption to the system, and the resulting events can be made available to a variety of event consumers. CICS events can amongst other things be used to drive processing within CICS, to populate dashboards that are provided by IBM Business Monitor and to search for patterns in events using IBM Operational Decision Manager. This IBM Redbooks® publication is divided into the following parts: Part 1 introduces event processing. We explain what it is and why you need it, and discuss how CICS makes it easy to both capture and emit events. Part 2 of the book focuses on the details of event processing with CICS. It gives a step-by-step guide to implementing CICS events, along with the environment used in the examples. Part 3 provides some guidance on governance and troubleshooting for CICS events, and describes how to integrate CICS events with IBM Operational Decision Manager and IBM Business Monitor. The Appendices include additional reference information.

IBM® CICS® Transaction Server Feature Pack for Dynamic Scripting embeds and integrates technology from WebSphere® sMash into the CICS TS V4.1 run time, helping to reduce the time and cost of CICS application development. The Feature Pack provides a robust, managed environment for a wide range of situational applications allowing PHP and Groovy developers to create reports, dashboards, and widgets, and integrate CICS assets into mash-ups, and much more. The CICS Dynamic Scripting Feature Pack combines the benefits of scripted, Web 2.0 applications with easy and secure access to CICS application and data resources. The Feature Pack includes a PHP 5.2 run time implemented in JavaTM and with Groovy language support, support for native Java code and access to many additional libraries and connectors to enhance the development and user experience of rich Internet applications. Access to CICS resources is achieved by using the JCICS APIs. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we introduce the Dynamic Scripting Feature Pack, show how to install and customize it, and provide examples for using it.

The IBM® CICS® Transaction Server for z/VSE® (CICS TS for z/VSE) 2.1 provides functions to improve application programming, system programming, system management, and data security and availability. With CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1, you can use the extended functionality of Basic Security Manager. CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1 can be administrated by the IBM CICS Explorer® function on a workstation, which allows CICS management in a convenient way. This IBM Redbooks® publication provides information to help you install, tailor, and configure the CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1 product. The book is intended for IBM z/VSE customers and IBM technical personnel who are responsible for planning and migrating to IBM z/VSE 6.1 and CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1. The book also provides information to help you understand the affect of migrating to CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1. It provides detailed guidance and samples for installing and configuring CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1. Also included in the book is a description of the CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1 features and capabilities and the affect of removing obsolete functions. The book also covers security and performance issues and provides samples for first level problem determination through the use of memory dumps or the use of trace tools.