The service flow project tools, which
are a part of the Enterprise Service Tools component of IBM® Rational® Developer
for System z®, allow
you to develop a comprehensive service flow that invokes and
processes data from multiple existing applications, including CICS® nonterminal applications, CICS terminal applications, and
Web services.*
A service flow allows you to integrate
calls to existing CICS applications
with calls to new CICS applications
or to Web services, without having to rewrite existing CICS applications.
To run a service flow you need the CICS Service Flow Feature (Service Flow Runtime)
(see Supported runtime environments for each project type).
You can also generate a macro for the Rational Host Access Transformation Services
(HATS) runtime from a service flow project (see Supported runtime environments for each project type).
You can invoke a service flow in the following ways:
- Using a CICS-supplied interface, including External Call Interface
(ECI), External CICS Interface
(EXCI), or Distributed Program Link (DPL), potentially with CICS Transaction Gateway (CTG)
or a distributed version of CICS.
- Using the WebSphere® MQ-CICS
bridge
- As the application program component of a Web service