If you use the SOAP for CICS® feature,
you must perform a number of tasks to migrate applications that use
the feature.
The support for Web services provided in CICS Transaction Server is
substantially different from that provided in the feature. The SOAP
for CICS feature relies to a considerable extent
upon user-written code, and therefore it is not possible to set out
a step-by-step migration task. However, here are some of the things
you will need to think about.
- Consider using the Web services assistant to construct
and parse SOAP messages. If you decide to do so, you are
advised to discard your existing message adapters, and deign new wrapper
programs to replace them, as it is unlikely that you will be able
to reuse significant amounts of code in your adapters.
- If you use SOAP messages, but decide not to use the Web
services assistant, you may be able to reuse your existing code for
constructing and parsing the messages. However, you should
consider whether to use the CICS-provided SOAP message handlers, because
they are designed to work with SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2 messages.
- Review your use of containers. The SOAP for
CICS feature uses BTS containers, whereas CICS Transaction Server uses
channel containers. You will need to review your programs and change
any BTS-related commands required by the feature. You will also need
to review the name and usage of each container, as most of these have
changed.
- Consider how to migrate the function that was provided
by your pipeline programs. The pipeline in the SOAP for
CICS feature has a fixed number of user-written programs, each with
a designated purpose. The function provided by some of these programs
is provided in CICS Transaction Server by
the CICS-provided SOAP message handlers, so you may be able to dispense
with these programs altogether.
On the other hand, CICS Transaction Server lets
you define as many programs in your pipeline as you need. Therefore,
you should consider whether the function performed by your pipeline
programs should be restructured to take advantage of the new framework.
In
any case, the way that pipeline programs communicate with CICS, and
with one another, has changed, so you will need to review these programs
to see if they can be reused in the new environment.
In the
SOAP for CICS feature, you could have just one pipeline for all your
service provider applications, and one for all your service requesters.
In CICS Transaction Server,
you can configure many different pipelines. Therefore, it is possible
that the logic you provided in your pipeline programs to distinguish
one application from another can be replaced by CICS resource definitions.
For example, in a service provider, code that distinguishes between
applications based upon a URI, can be replaced with a suitable set
of URIMAP resources