This IBM® Redbooks® publication provides an example approach of an agile IT team that implements development and operations (DevOps) capabilities into an IBM CICS® application. Several tools are used to show how teams can achieve transparency, traceability, and automation in their application lifecycle with the assistance of all the stakeholders to deliver high-quality application changes that meet the requirements.

The application changes that are built highlight the composable and dynamic nature of using CICS, the Liberty JVM runtime server, and IBM UrbanCode™ Deploy, which allows developers to get their applications running quickly by using only the programming model features that are required for their applications.

The target audience for this publication is IT developers, managers, and architects, and project managers, test managers and developers, and operations managers and developers.

This book was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working at the International Technical Support Organization, Raleigh Center.

Hernan Cunico is a Senior Information and IT Architect at the ITSO, Raleigh Center. He has over 18 years of experience in the consulting and development fields. His areas of expertise include user experience design, information and application development, middleware, portals, open source, cloud, mobile, and agile development. He has written extensively on commerce, portals, migrations, human resources, and learning solutions.

Rod Ainge is a Software Engineer at the Bank of Western Australia, in Australia. He has over 30 years of experience in development and software management. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). His areas of expertise include application development, Software Release Management, and Development Infrastructure. He is a Mainframe Evangelist and keen advocate of new technologies, such as Java, on IBM z Systems™.

Chris Carlin is a Staff Software Engineer in the United States. He has 11 years of experience as a CICS Level II Technical Support representative at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He has worked at IBM for 20 years, spending nine years as an Application Developer at various IBM clients. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science and a minor in Management from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).

Ben Cox is a Software Engineer and Designer at IBM Hursley, UK. He has six years of experience working in the development team for CICS Transaction Server and IBM CICS Explorer®, including bringing OSGi support to CICS, creating the CICS cloud, and working on the build and deployment tools that are described in this book.

Tsahi Duek is a CICS system programmer in Israel. He has 10 years of experience in the IT field. He holds a B.S.C degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the Open University in Israel, and a M.S.C degree in Technology and IT Management from Holon Institute of Technology in Israel. His areas of expertise include application management and development, team management, business impact analysis, and workflow process design.

Ezriel Gross is the CEO of Circle Software Inc, formerly Circle Computer Group LLC, an IBM Business Partner that specializes in hands-on classes in CICS, IBM DB2®, and
IBM WebSphere® MQ.  Ezriel has been an IBM Gold Consultant for many years and attends the annual Gold briefing to keep current.  Besides consulting, he teaches and develops CICS courses for both IBM and Circle.  His specialties include CICS Web Services, CICS Web Support, CICS Performance / Tuning, and CICS Internals.

Lydia Hao Yang Li is a Client Technical Specialist with IBM ASEAN in Singapore. She has eight years of experience in the z Systems family. For the past five years, she has been in presales supporting customers across Southeast Asia with z Systems solutions. Her areas of expertise include CICS, problem determination Tools, connectivity, and mobile solutions. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Subhajit Maitra is a Senior IT Specialist and member of the IBM North America Systems Middleware Technical Sales team. In addition to CICS, his expertise includes IBM Operational Decision Manager, IBM Integration Bus, and WebSphere MQ on z Systems products. Subhajit, who has worked in IT for 22 years, is also an IBM Global Technical Ambassador for Central and Eastern Europe, where he helps IBM clients implement business-critical solutions on z Systems servers. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, India, and is an IBM zChampion.

Also contributing to the development of this book was Shawn Tooley, a technical writer with the ITSO at the Raleigh Center.

In addition, the authors want to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this project:

Matthew Comer, Mark Cooker, David Knibb, Phil Wakelin, Matthew Wilson

Here’s an opportunity to spotlight your skills, grow your career, and become a published author—all at the same time! Join an ITSO residency project and help write a book in your area of expertise, while honing your experience using leading-edge technologies. Your efforts will help to increase product acceptance and customer satisfaction, as you expand your network of technical contacts and relationships. Residencies run from two to six weeks in length, and you can participate either in person or as a remote resident working from your home base.

Find out more about the residency program, browse the residency index, and apply online at:

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