This article is the first in a four-part series. Over the next three months, follow-on articles will look more closely at how CICS TS v4.1 will enable organizations to compete, comply, and control costs
An agile organization with the ability to innovate can position itself for growth even in difficult circumstances, such as a challenging world economy.
For 40 years, CICS has provided a top-performing, dependable, and cost-effective platform for building modern applications, even as the definition of modern has changed markedly. The traditional qualities of CICS – security, reliability, availability, scalability, data-integrity, manageability, and application responsiveness – are the bedrock that has supported long-term business success, while continuous innovation has contributed to greater success by adding support for application styles including third and fourth generation languages, Java, Web, Web services, and service flow.
CICS Transaction Server for z/OS v4.1 (CICS TS), pre-announced on February 24, 2009, will continue this tradition with new:
• Web 2.0 programming support including RESTful APIs and Atom feeds
• Non-invasive business event capabilities
• CICS Explorer, our new Eclipse-based operational tooling based around an extensible data and action model.
CICS TS v4.1 will deliver business and technical value, enabling the enterprise to Compete for new business, Comply with regulations and manage risk in rapidly changing markets, and Control costs whether managing existing or building new applications.
Compete with CICS
Organizations that can gain greater insight into key business processes can compete more effectively. For example, rich information from a broader variety of sources can improve insurance underwriting decisions. Mashups using Atom feeds or RESTful APIs can integrate corporate operational data from CICS customer policy systems with public information from sources like electoral rolls and crime statistics, as well as mapping, weather, climate, and similar third-party information. Brought together, these can provide higher levels of business insight required to identify risk levels, approve policies, make re-insurance decisions, etc.
Creating mashups using powerful tools from IBM like WebSphere sMash and Rational Developer for System z (RDz), or from other vendors, can greatly simplify access to these diverse information sources and accelerate development of Web 2.0 applications.
Comply with CICS
Sound governance and demonstrable compliance are critical to the management of business risk – an increasing requirement for both enterprise lines of business and IT management.
Feeding events that are triggered by banking, trading, or sales transactions, health insurance claims, or any other business-relevant data from CICS applications to dashboard tools like IBM WebSphere Business Monitor gives executives and managers the insight they need to manage and govern their business, react to changing patterns, and respond to new opportunities. Routing those same events to a Business Event Processing system such as IBM WebSphere Business Events enables fast identification and response to out-of-line situations, such as unusual behavior patterns in bank accounts, share dealing, sales transactions, and other corporate or regulatory compliance issues. And when IBM WebSphere Process Server is added to the mix, insight can be turned into action, with automated invocation of investigation, recovery, or other appropriate processes.
New CICS event technology will enable CICS to be configured to feed event processing engines and business dashboards, without the need for application change. This will better allow the line of business to ensure that business processes are under control and to monitor and react to compliance requirements, security breaches, and incidents of fraud. Business event detection and emission within CICS requires no changes to or re-testing of existing applications, enabling the creation of production business views using dashboards in a matter of hours.
Control with CICS
CICS TS v4.1 helps to control costs by simplifying IT infrastructure and improving development and operations productivity through easier-to-use interfaces and functions. For example, the non-invasive emission of CICS events greatly reduces the effort required to event-enable an application while integrated system management provides the necessary operational control. Additionally, new support for Service Component Architecture simplifies and speeds the process of assembling and deploying new business applications.
The CICS Explorer, currently available as a SupportPac for CICS TS v3, will give the CICS TS v4.1 user a powerful tooling environment to help skilled IT staff be more productive and provide a more intuitive experience for less knowledgeable team members. Its integration with CICS tools and with RDz ensures a common CICS view across the life-cycle, helping to improve CICS IT productivity, adapt to a changing skill-base, manage complex environments, and provide the tooling for the new CICS capabilities like Events, Web 2.0, and Components. A Software Development Kit (SDK) is available so that business partners, customers, and IBM can extend the CICS Explorer and integrate it with their own tools and best practices.
Summary
The new version of CICS provides a platform for business growth and evolution. With new support for Business Events, Web 2.0, and the CICS Explorer, CICS Transaction Server for z/OS v4.1 will enable IT departments and LOB to "do more with less" and “do it right,” capturing emerging opportunities as markets recover while maintaining business control and demonstrating compliance to relevant regulatory obligations.
The new version will be generally available later in 2009.
For more information on CICS TS v4.1, please visit http://ibm.com/cics/tserver/v41. Also look for more on the new CICS in the next issues of CICS Spotlight.
John Knutson, IBM CICS Tools Program Manager
Ian J. Mitchell, IBM Senior Technical Staff, Chief Architect for CICS
