Updating CICS bundles

Use the bundle manifest editor and the resource editors to edit the contents of a CICS® bundle and to increase its version number. Then deploy the new version of the CICS bundle, or an application that includes it, to your CICS regions.

About this task

You manage changes to CICS bundles by using version control. You must apply a versioning policy to your CICS bundles, application bundles, and application bindings to deploy and manage updates in the CICS environment.

Each bundle has an ID and version information to uniquely identify it. The version uses major, minor, and micro identifiers, so you can indicate the significance of a change and manage the dependencies between bundles. This concept is called semantic versioning and is taken from the OSGi Alliance. Although it focuses on Java™ packages, you can use the same principles to apply to bundles in general.

Semantic versioning provides a way to increment the major, minor, or micro parts of a version to indicate the compatibility or incompatibility with previous versions of a bundle. For example, bug fixes might increment the micro part of the version, compatible changes increment the minor part of the version, and incompatible changes increment the major part of the version. For more information about semantic versioning, see Semantic Versioning Technical Whitepaper.

You can specify that a CICS bundle has changed by increasing the version number in the bundle manifest file. If the CICS bundle is referenced by an application, you must also increase the version of the application bundle for redeployment.

Procedure

  1. Click Window > Show view > Project Explorer to open the Project Explorer view.
  2. To edit a CICS bundle, expand the META-INF folder for the CICS bundle and double-click on the cics.xml file. The bundle manifest editor opens.
  3. Update the CICS bundle as required. You can use the bundle manifest editor to add and remove dependencies from the CICS bundle, create new application entry points, and define policy scopes. To edit resources that are defined in the CICS bundle, use the resource editors, as described in Editing resources defined in a CICS bundle project.
  4. When you have updated the CICS bundle, use the bundle manifest editor to increment the major, minor, or micro version numbers for the CICS bundle according to your versioning policy, and save your changes.
  5. If the CICS bundle is referenced by an application, update the application and the application binding. Updating applications explains how to use the application editor and application binding editor to update an application and an application binding.
    1. Update the application with the new version of the CICS bundle in the bundles.xml file for the application bundle.
    2. Increment the major, minor, or micro version numbers for the application in the application.xml file for the application bundle.
    3. Increment the major, minor, and micro version numbers for the application in the appbinding.xml file for the application binding.
    4. Increment the major, minor, and micro version numbers for the application binding in the appbinding.xml file for the application binding.
  6. If the CICS bundle is deployed with an application or an application binding, update the bundles.xml file for the application binding to specify the new version of the CICS bundle, and update the deployment.xml file for the application binding to specify the region types where the new version of the CICS bundle is deployed. Increment the version number for the application binding in the appbinding.xml file for the application binding. Updating an application binding project explains how to use the application binding editor to update an application binding.
  7. Redeploy the CICS bundle or the application and application binding that include it, by exporting the project to z/OS® UNIX. The new version number is used as part of the name for the bundle directory, so the previous versions of the bundle remain on z/OS UNIX.
  8. If the previous version of the CICS bundle was installed in one or more CICS regions as a standalone CICS bundle, update the CICS bundle in each CICS region individually.
    1. Make unavailable, then disable and discard, the installed BUNDLE resource that represents the previous version of the CICS bundle.
    2. Edit the BUNDLE resource definition to point to the updated bundle directory.
    3. Reinstall the BUNDLE resource definition, enable it, and make it available.
  9. If the previous version of the CICS bundle was deployed with a platform bundle, or added to a platform, update the CICS bundle at the level of the platform.
    1. Disable the previous version of the CICS bundle and remove it from the platform, following the instructions in Removing a CICS bundle from a platform.
    2. Add the new version of the CICS bundle to the platform and enable it, following the instructions in Adding a CICS bundle to a platform.
  10. If the CICS bundle is referenced by an application bundle, follow the process in Deploying new versions of applications on a platform to make unavailable, disable and discard the installed APPLCTN resource, create a new APPLDEF resource definition, and install the new APPLDEF resource definition. If your application uses only the resources that are supported for multi-versioning, you can install and make available multiple versions of the application at the same time on the platform. If your application uses resources that are not supported for multi-versioning, you must disable and discard the existing version of the application before you install a new version.

Results

The CICS bundle is installed in the appropriate CICS regions, and the resources that are defined inside the bundle are dynamically created in the CICS regions.