Getting started with CICS TX on Cloud

IBM CICS TX on Cloud is here! It is a new offering that provides cloud native experience for developing and deploying mixed language applications. If you are someone who already runs CICS applications on distributed platforms (Intel Linux, Windows, AIX etc.), give it a shot. Within minutes you will have a deployment environment for CICS in cloud!

CICS TX on Cloud is based on core runtime of TXSeries for Multiplatforms. Hence it supports all the APIs supported by TXSeries. It supports most of the core capabilities supported by TXSeries for example, VSAM files, etc.

It enables containerization of CICS applications using Docker technology. This allows you to create applications that are portable across different cloud platforms.

You just need two things to get started - latest Docker Engine & Kubernetes.

To download CICS TX on Cloud trial version, go to this link https://www.ibm.com/us-en/marketplace/cics-tx-on-cloud and click on request trial version. You will need an IBM ID to download the trial.

Trial image provides you with a docker image of CICS TX on Cloud and Helm charts.

Load the trial image into docker repository

docker load -i ibm-cics-tx-on-cloud-docker-image-10.1.0.0-Trial

Verify that the image has been loaded

docker images

Create a dockerfile with image

# Dockerfile

FROM ibm-cics-tx-on-cloud:10.1.0.0

And get going!

We will follow up with more blogs on these topics. To dive into the details of the product visit its knowledge center.

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSNAQ8_10.1.0/com.ibm.cics.tx.doc/concepts/c_geting_strt_cicstx_cloud.html

 Reach out to me if you would like to get more details, participate in webinar or would like to see a demo of the product capabilities at ankaushi@in.ibm.com