Chapter 1 Understanding Application Integrator for CICS

What Is AI for CICS?

AI for CICS is a Jaguar component development and deployment tool that allows application developers to quickly integrate legacy applications and transactions with Jaguar.

AI for CICS is included in Sybase EAServer, an integrated set of application servers you can use to deploy Web applications that support high-volume traffic, dynamic content, and intensive online transaction processing. EAServer consists of PowerDynamo, Jaguar, AI for CICS, AI for Stored Procedures, and Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA).

This section covers the following topics:

A Description of AI for CICS

Using its Component Builder design tool, AI for CICS allows you to create components that are proxies (front-ends) for CICS programs written in COBOL, making them accessible to Internet or Intranet clients. These components, which represent the COBOL programs, are deployed in Jaguar. The end result is a LAN- or Web-based application that gives the user full access to existing CICS programs that can read and/or write mainframe data.

AI for CICS exposes mainframe business logic through two types of objects:

A component: a self-contained, reusable, piece of software that represents business logic of the CICS program
A connection: a specification of a path that a component uses to contact its source program

AI for CICS can run in a gateway-less environment or in a gateway environment using DirectConnect for MVS and DirectConnect Transaction Router Service (TRS).

AI for CICS Architecture

AI for CICS architecture consists of the following:

The Component Builder, the design-time Graphical User Interface (GUI) portion of AI for CICS, which allows the user to perform these tasks:
- Import data definition information that defines the component
- Create a connection and a component
- Deploy the component to produce Java source code
A library of Java classes that components use to access the mainframe
The AI for CICS mainframe run time that invokes COBOL programs on behalf of AI for CICS components

Figure 1-1 shows the design-time architecture of AI for CICS.

Figure 1-1: AI for CICS design-time architecture

During design time, the Component Builder imports the COMMAREA from the CICS program (in this example, from a copybook), then deploys the component with its definitions into Jaguar, where it will be used by the client application.

Figure 1-2 shows the run-time architecture of AI for CICS.

Figure 1-2: AI for CICS run-time architecture

During run time, a client application attempts to invoke a component in Jaguar, which in turn accesses the CICS program on the mainframe. Note that if you are using SNA connectivity protocol, you need to provide connectivity from the Jaguar machine through DirectConnect TRS to CICS; this is the gateway option for connectivity.