Planning to use optimized local adapters on Liberty for z/OS

Plan how to implement WebSphere optimized local adapters (WOLA) in our Liberty server environment.

For CICS Transaction Server for z/OS® to communicate with optimized local adapters, the minimum required version of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS is version 4.1.

If we have applications that are written in native languages, such as Cobol, PL/I, C/C++, and high-level assembly languages, that run under z/OS batch, Customer Information Control System (CICS), or UNIX System Services environments, we can use optimized local adapters to directly call between the native-language application and Java-based business logic on a Liberty server. We can use optimized local adapters to make the following calls:

  • Inbound calls from an external address space to Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) applications deployed on a local Liberty server
  • Outbound calls from an application running under the Liberty server on z/OS to a server program running in an external address space

If we have a large number of native-language applications we want to use on Liberty, implementing optimized local adapters provides the following benefits:

  • Performance improvement
  • Identity context propagation
  • Local binding support
  • Gateway or proxy for legacy assets on z/OS systems

  1. Review the existing business and middleware applications in the environment to determine which application processes would benefit from using optimized local adapters. Choose processes we can remove and replace with calls to the optimized local adapter native API callable services.

    For more information about when to use optimized local adapters, see Optimized local adapters on Liberty for z/OS and Optimized local adapters usage scenarios for Liberty for z/OS.

  2. If we plan to propagate a System Authorization Facility (SAF) user ID from Liberty for z/OS to the enterprise information system (EIS), verify that the Liberty server is using a SAF-based user registry.

    See Activating and configuring the SAF registry on z/OS.

  3. Review the optimized local adapters samples. There are several examples included when we install Liberty for z/OS. For information about using the samples, see Optimized local adapters samples for Liberty.
  4. Decide how to use optimized local adapters. We can use the optimized local adapters to make inbound or outbound calls.

    1. Use the optimized local adapters to call inbound to Liberty server EJB applications.

      The following image shows the flow of an inbound CICS call to a Liberty server EJB application.

      Figure 1. Use CICS

    2. Use the optimized local adapters to call programs in external address spaces from Liberty server applications.

      The following figure shows the flow of an outbound Liberty server call to a CICS transaction.

    For more information about using optimized local adapters, see Enable the Liberty server environment to use optimized local adapters and Optimized local adapters APIs on Liberty for z/OS.


Subtopics


Parent topic: Administer data access resources on Liberty