Development of TCP/IP interfaces using CICS sockets
 

SOLVE: CPT (CICS Programmers Toolkit) is a product that simplifies the development of TCP/IP applications within CICS—in OS/390 and z/OS environments—using COBOL, Assembler, PL/I, and C languages.
 

Key features:

1. Applications can be created quickly using CPT/Tools—pre-programmed transactions for sending and receiving data and for writing to/reading from Transient Data (TD) queues—or via the CPT/API, where the programmer controls the entire sequence of activities.

2. Administration interface for monitoring and dynamically changing configurations, as well as real-time trace collection.

3. SELECT tool for coding pseudo-conversational socket applications.

4. Compatibility with applications developed using CICS Sockets.

Benefits of the Unicenter Solve CPT Solution
1. Problem determination.

2. Effective environment management: online view of active API calls.

3. Increased productivity in application development.

4. Scalability / Elimination of single points of failure.

5. Ability to use CICS Sockets and CPT simultaneously.

New applications that exchange data with network workstations can be developed without abandoning the established CICS programming environment or requiring COBOL, PL/I, Assembler, or C programmers to acquire deep knowledge of network protocols.

• TCP/IP applications can be developed very quickly using CPT/Tools—pre-programmed transactions that allow programmers to send and receive data while reading from and writing to TD queues—or via the CPT/API, where the programmer controls the entire sequence of activities.

• CPT offers an administration interface that enables dynamic configuration changes, monitoring of connections and system usage, and real-time selective tracing. This tracing capability can be used in production environments without performance degradation, thereby simplifying the problem-determination process.

• With CPT/MRO, these features can be combined with a fault-tolerant, dynamic load-balancing environment that routes transactions across multiple CICS address spaces.

• Using the Select tool, it is possible to code pseudo-conversational CICS socket applications that activate only when data is actually received on the connection, allowing for up to 2,000 simultaneous connections per CICS region.

• Applications originally developed using IBM's CICS sockets interface can run within the CPT environment, benefiting from improved performance and monitoring capabilities.

• CPT is compatible with both Unicenter TCPaccess and IBM TCP/IP.