IBM Mainframe Forum

Hi, I am having a requirement to connect a CICS transaction to a USS(Unix box) and in turn execute FTP process with the required information to pull a file from a different server(residing outside Mainframe). Could you please help on this.

CICS - USS - XYX Server

XYZ server is having the file which i need to pull into mainframe or send it to printer for printing.
CICS Screen will accept the required file details from the user.
This details from CICS screen will be used to fetch the path where the file is stored in the XYZ server.

Thanks

did anybody in Your organisation validate the requirement for feasibility ?
( with reasonable skills and reasonable process flow )

Since CICS does not directly use FTP, you will need to submit a batch job from your CICS transaction to invoke FTP -- which is not necessarily the best way to go. The whole "requirement" is not well-thought out.

Create a CICS web service provider using CICS container support to receive and process the file in real-time.

Write a web service consumer on server with a GUI interface for the user that will fetch the file, wrap the content in WSDL and send it to the CICS web service provider via SOAP/HTTP.

If the CICS transaction can't process the file, or it isn't desirable for it to do so, you can have it write the file content as an entry sequenced VSAM file and use presence of data in a file to trigger your scheduler to run a job that processes the file. You job will require a simple program to convert the VSAM file back to a flat file.

This is the process we use to eliminate lots of annoying FTPs. It allows the client to determine when they want a file processed and eliminates any external intervention. If you want to get cute, you can capture the JES log info for the job and make it available to the client via another web service request. This puts the entire process in the clients hands, so we do not have to deal with it.

You will need Java to write the web service consumer in Java (possibly with .net). You will need SOAPUI from SmartBear to test with. Your CICS region must have unix support activated.

OOPS, SORRY! I didn't realize the original post was so old.