TestNG Suite for CICS IA Install Automation
CICS IA tool helps to identify the set of resources used by individual CICS applications (like transactions, commands, etc) and their dependencies which helps in understanding the characteristics of an application.
Manual CICS IA Installation at the host-side:
- Invoke customization program and configure new or have the existing parameters.
- Navigate to the libraries which are created from the previous step and run the respective jobs to create VSAM & GDG files, dependency & affinity databases for CICS IA.
- Grant access to the databases and bind the update table program.
- Update version details and load the program or transaction which needs to be analyzed by CICS IA to the DB2 table. Load the tables which are static (Threadsafe tables) and load CICS resources & files by running the respective jobs.
- Install the CICS IA group to the running CICS system by CEDA command.
- Logon to the installed CICS IA region and configure Interdependency/affinity/ command flow. Logon to the TSO region, navigate to the libraries of CICS IA and submit the respective jobs by giving the collection ID.
What TestNG does?
TestNG does the overall automation part in the host-side and creates collection ID for Interdependency/affinity/command flow which can be viewed in the CICS IA plug-in of z/OS explorer by connecting to the host connection.
How TestNG access mainframe jobs?
- TestNG accesses jobs in mainframe using a REST API called z/OSMF (z/OS Management Facility).
- z/OSMF REST API is a public API that an application can use to work with system resources and extract system data.
- z/OSMF will use either HTTP 1.0 or HTTP 1.1 protocol.
- z/OSMF offers various types of REST interfaces to access the mainframe.
z/OSMF workflow in CICS IA:
- Request: z/OSMF sends an HTTP request to the mainframe to access the jobs. If the request is valid, mainframe accepts the request and performs the process requested.
- Response: Once the process is completed, an HTTP response is built based on the output of mainframe jobs.
Ex: Job submission is processed by the mainframe based on HTTP request made. If the job is not submitted successfully then a bad response code will be built. With the job response code, the output can also be retrieved if requested via HTTP request.
- Process in CICS IA:
z/OSMF REST interface type is mostly used in CICS IA z/OS jobs REST interface.
Generally, when scripts are run via TestNG suite the z/OSMF is invoked when it is needed.
In CICS IA the HTTP request is made to submit the job and retrieve the return code of the job submission.
Manual vs Automation of CICS IA:
- Automating the installation of CICS IA simplifies the process and reduces the time required to set up manually.
- With the TestNG scripts, it is very easy to configure CICS IA for non-mainframe users.