Introduction

The LegStar JCA Connectors are standard resource adapters for JEE Application Servers.

These connectors are meant to be used with the LegStar product. LegStar provides both the COBOL to Java Transformers and the underlying [transports to z/OS.

The first JCA Connector released is the LegStar JCA Socket Connector described in this document.

In the future, there will be one JCA Connector for each of the LegStar Transports and other extension transports.

LegStar JCA Socket Connector

This connector uses socket connectivity to the mainframe. It targets IBM CICS programs. These programs can be commarea or container driven.

This connector relies on the Application Server connection pooling capabilities and therefore it does not use the LegStar connection pooling mechanism.

It provides Local Transaction support. Transactions can be explicitly handled using component-managed local transactions or container-managed. The LegStar JCA Connector does not support XA.

Finally it integrates with the Application Server security mechanism so you can, for instance, map groups of authenticated users to a single mainframe User ID (RACF).

Installation

Pre-requisites

You can install the LegStar JCA Socket Connector in any JEE-compliant application server.

You don't need to install LegStar itself on the java side if you only plan to run the samples provided. If however, you want to integrate your own CICS programs, you will need the LegStar development tools. In this case, refer to the LegStar users guide for instructions on installing and using LegStar.

Install LegStar Socket Transport in CICS

You will need the LegStar Socket Transport modules for CICS to be installed.

Please follow instructions in this document in order to get the LegStar z/OS distribution installed in CICS.

Then setup the configuration parameters for the Socket Transport.

In adddition to installing the LegStar modules for CICS in the target CICS region, you will need to compile and install the COBOL programs provided in the connectors distribution if you want to run the samples (look for the samples/cobol folder). These samples use the IBM provided IVP sample file "FILEA".

Install LegStar JCA Socket Connector in the Application Server

These are generic instructions for any JEE application server. We have a more precise document if you plan on deploying to JBoss Application Server.

Once you download the LegStar JCA connectors distribution, you can unzip it to a location of your choice.

The distrubution contains a resource adapter archive (rar) file. You use an Application Server specific mechanism to deploy it.

There are 3 important parameters that you will need to setup (see ra.xml for details):

In addition, you can optionally specify:

Samples provided

Once you have installed the JCA Connector, you can use one of the distributed samples, available both for JEE5 and JEE6: