Deploy a Service Interface

Walks you through the steps required to associate an enterprise server instance with your project, build the project, set deployment properties, deploy the service interface, and verify the deployment results.
Restriction: This topic applies only when the Enterprise Server feature is enabled.

To successfully deploy a REST service interface to an enterprise server instance, you need to first set some options in Visual COBOL.

Build the ProgramREST Project

You need to build the project to generate all required deployment files.

  • On the Solution Explorer, right-click the ProgramREST project; then click Build.

Set Deployment Properties

To ensure that the deployment process runs smoothly, you must set some options that tell Visual COBOL where to find certain files.

  1. From the Solution Explorer, right-click the MakeCheckAppt service interface; then click Properties.
  2. Ensure that the interface type property is set to JSON Web Service (default).
  3. Click the Application files to deploy field, and then click its corresponding browse button Browse button to add the following files:
    Files Location Description
    • appoint.dat
    • consultants.dat
    • customers.dat

    Your project's ProgramREST folder

    Data files accessed by the service.
    schedule.dll Your project's ProgramREST\bin\x86\Debug folder The executable file you need to debug the service.

    These files are copied to the enterprise server when you deploy.

  4. Click OK.

Associate the ESREST Enterprise Server Instance

You need to associate the ESREST enterprise server instance with your ProgramREST project:

  1. From Server Explorer, expand localhost under Micro Focus Servers to see a list of available enterprise server instances.
  2. Right-click ESREST; then click Associate with Project > ProgramREST.

Stop Enterprise Server Instances

To ensure that your enterprise server instance does not encounter any port conflicts with other enterprise server instances that use the same listener port, stop all started enterprise server instances as follows:

  1. From the Server Explorer, expand localhost under Micro Focus Servers to see a list of enterprise server instances.
  2. Right-click each started enterprise server instance, and stop it by selecting Stop from the context menu. Started enterprise server instances show with a green icon Started enterprise server instance.

Start the ESREST Enterprise Server Instance

Before deploying your service interface, you must start the ESREST instance where the MakeCheckAppt service will run.

  1. From the Server Explorer, expand localhost under Micro Focus Servers to see a list of available enterprise server instances.
  2. Right-click ESREST; then select Start from the context menu.
    Note: If this is the first time you have started the server you see a sign-on dialog box. If Server is secured is checked, uncheck it; then click OK. Unchecking Server is secured prevents this dialog box from showing when you subsequently start the region. If Server is secured is not checked, simply click OK to clear the dialog box.

The Enterprise Server Console Daemon is then invoked, starting the ESREST enterprise server instance.

Deploy the MakeCheckAppt service interface

  • From the Solution Explorer, right-click the MakeCheckAppt service interface; then click Deploy.

The Output window shows the progression of the deployment process. If deployment was successful, you should see a message: Deployment completed with warnings. If you scroll up to see the log output, notice that the deployment process changed the direction of the slashes in some directory specifications. This is normal behavior for successful deployment.

If deployment ever fails, you should find a message in the Output window indicating why it failed. Also, the failure message contains the path to the deployment log file. You can type the address into a browser and view the log file from there.

View Deployment Results

Now that your service interface has been deployed as a service running on the ESREST enterprise server, you can look at the details of the deployed service via the Enterprise Server Administration page.

  1. If you have closed the Enterprise Server Administration window in Visual COBOL, start it again.

    In the row showing information for the ESREST enterprise server instance, you should see that the Objects column shows the number of services that this enterprise server instance runs.

  2. Click the Details button for the ESREST Services.

    In the row showing your new service, MakeCheckAppt, you'll notice that the Current Status column shows both operations as Available. This means that the service is ready to be accessed by a client.

  3. Close Enterprise Server Administration.