You need to do the Interface Mapping tutorials in the order shown by the Tutorials Map.
This chapter gives a brief introduction to the Interface Mapping Toolkit, before you start the tutorials on mapping COBOL to other interfaces.
The Interface Mapping Toolkit enables you to expose existing COBOL programs to non-COBOL clients such as COM Objects, EJBs, Java beans and Web Services. You do this by mapping the entry points and data items in the COBOL program onto an external interface.
The first Interface Mapping tutorial shows how to expose a COBOL service as a COM interface, an EJB and a Web Service. You can also create a J2SE bean using the Interface Mapper, and this is similar to creating an EJB. Subsequent tutorials show how to deploy the service and how to generate a client for it, and finally how to run it.
Net Express provides other facilities and techniques for interfacing with non-COBOL technologies, such as C, Java, COM and Web server-side interfaces such as CGI. See the Tutorials Map for links to tutorials on these.
The Interface Mapping Toolkit contains the following tools:
When you run the exposed COBOL for use via a Web service or Java interface, it runs under an enterprise server, which is a full-scale application server for COBOL. You use the Enterprise Server product to create enterprise servers. The enterprise server handles requests coming in through your mapped interface from the client. The enterprise server passes the requests to the COBOL run-time system to be processed and then returns the response back through the interface to the client.
When you run the exposed COBOL for use via a COM object, it runs under Micro Focus Server, which comprises the run-time system support for applications written in Net Express. Enterprise Server is not used.
Micro Focus Server run-time support is supplied with your COBOL development system for you to use in testing. If you deploy and run your COBOL applications on production machines, you must have Micro Focus Server licenses from Micro Focus. See Deployment Licensing Overview.
Once you have created and deployed your service, it can be invoked by independently written clients. If you have created an EJB, it can be called from another EJB, JSP, or other J2EE component. Also, the service could be invoked through an unmanaged (non-J2EE) connection outside the J2EE environment. If it is a COM interface, it can be called by the usual COM mechanisms, and by .NET - for example, you could use VB.NET for a GUI client, or ASP.NET for a Web client. If your service is a Web service, it can be called from any type of client that supports remote invocation of Web services.
A Web service is described in a notation called WSDL, Web Services Description Language. When you create a Web service in the Interface Mapping Toolkit, a WSDL file is created for it. A user creating a client application works from the WSDL file to know how to invoke the service and what data to pass to it and expect back from it. You can, for example, use this WSDL file in your favorite Java or .NET workbench to create a Java or .NET client.
The Interface Mapping Toolkit includes a Generate Client function, which generates either a simple COBOL client application that works with your Web service, or a Java client that works with your EJB.
The following tutorials illustrate a selection of different types of clients. In each tutorial, you get a supplied client application running and look at how it interfaces to the service. In the tutorial on a COBOL client for a Web service, we use the Generate Client function instead of supplying a ready-written client.
The clients you use in these tutorials can be used as guides for writing clients for your real services.
To follow the tutorials to create and deploy EJBs, you require the following third party software:
See the Third Party Software for details of the supported versions of the JDK, J2EE application servers and J2SE run-time environments.
Start at the next chapter, Creating a Service.
Copyright © 2006 Micro Focus (IP) Ltd. All rights reserved.