Designing and Programming CICS Applications

Part IV. The Web Component

In the space of just a few short years, the World Wide Web has changed from being a repository of static information, inhabited only by computer enthusiasts with considerable technical expertise, to a huge and vibrant marketplace in which both small and large corporations do much of their business. It is also a place to which virtually everyone has easy, low-cost access.

Most information on the Web is presented using HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Today a greater proportion of web pages are generated dynamically, delivering data to customers quickly and which is directly relevant to their request. Customer information is still managed to a large extent by backend servers which handle data processing.

CICS provides several means by which legacy applications (such as those that pay your salary) can be re-used and accessed from remote clients, including web browsers. CICS TS for OS/390 Version 1.3 supports CORBA (as described in Part III) and CORBA clients can be implemented at web servers (and even directly in web browsers) that allow CICS applications to be run from the Web.

For our sample application, we describe the development of a browser frontend and how a CORBA client can be implemented on a web server. This Part contains the following chapters:

• Chapter 8

• Chapter 9

In addition to the usual software requirements, this part also makes extensive use of the following products:

• Web browser: for example, Netscape Communicator 4.5 or MicroSoft Internet Explorer ...