cics technical exchange - ibm community

Welcome to the IBM Z Presentation Template — Firstname Lastname Job Title28th January 2021
Introduction and welcome
What is the CICS Technical Exchange?
Latest news from the CICS Team - Russell Bonner
Upcoming events and publications
Summary of latest announcements
Resource overrides - Prad Gohil
Ask Me Anything
© 2021 IBM Corporation 3
GSE Security User Group February 4
CICS TS open beta education February 11 part 1 February 18 part 2
SHARE March 2021 (over 4 weeks)
CICS Technical Exchange April
Next event
Running over 2 years Turned virtual in 2020 All things mainframe No charge Run every month – 6 weeks, around 90 mins
Come and join us:
CICS TS V5.6 continuous delivery, and CICS TS open beta
What is continuous delivery?
• New features available via service (APARs), or separate downloads
• Builds on CICS TS V5.6 that was announced 12 June 2020
• Summary of new features in announcement
• Details of new features in What’s New?
Support for Node.js 14
• Requires IBM SDK for Node.js – z/OS 14
• Enables developers to build microservices and web applications using the latest JavaScript features and frameworks
• Optimized access to CICS TS programs with the ibm-cics-api API
Enhanced Zowe CLI CICS deploy plug-in
• Compatible with Zowe CLI version 1, making it simple to install and update
• Useful for developers and CI/CD pipelines to deploy Node.js applications
CICS TS for z/OS 5.6 continuous delivery
New articles and samples to get started with Spring Boot Java applications in CICS
• How-to guides and ready-to-run samples
• Topics on:
Using the JCICS API to access CICS programs and resources
JDBC to access IBM Db2®
JMS to access IBM MQ
Building and deploying applications using Gradle and Maven
CICS TS for z/OS 5.6 continuous delivery
Ansible IBM z/OS CICS collection to automate CICS resources and region actions
• Red Hat® Ansible® is a popular open source tool to automate configuration management and deployments on IBM z/OS and many other platforms with a consistent approach, architecture, and set of skills
• Supports the combination of tasks and conditional logic into powerful Ansible playbooks, which can then be run from command line interfaces (CLI), browser dashboards, within editors, or DevOps pipelines
Enhanced CICS TS plug-in for UrbanCode Deploy to support CICS TS 5.6
• Deploy CICS TS applications to all supported environments eg. Dev, Test, QA, Production using IBM UrbanCode® Deploy (UCD)
Resource definition overrides
• Saves time and effort by using the same CICS definitions in development, test, and production environments without change
• Easily describe and document the resource attributes to override in a separate file for that environment, using generic rules and system- specific symbols, such as the LPAR name or APPLID
• Apply enterprise standards by ensuring certain attribute values are always on or off, set to a specific value, or follow a naming convention
Scoping for policy task rules
• New rule filters to limit policies to only apply to:
A specific transaction or range of transactions
A specific user ID or range of user IDs, or both
Enhanced monitoring for temporary storage capacity
• CICS will issue messages when the auxiliary temporary storage (TS) data set or pool structure is approaching its capacity
• Enabling actions to be automated, such as freeing up storage, and issuing alerts using either a CICS policy or automation tools
IBM early programs
• May not be used for productive purposes
• Not warranted
We’d love to hear your feedback
• Learn more in the announcement and details in What’s new?
• Learn even more from CICS developers at the CICS TS open beta education
• Try it out now by downloading
Support for TLS 1.3
• Use of numeric ciphers in the CIPHERS fields of resources, and numeric ciphers on the WEB OPEN API is deprecated are deprecated
• Default ciphers for resources are now obtained from the file defaultciphers.xml in USSCONFIG
Support for Instruction Execution Protection (IEP)
• Exploits the z/OS 2.4 IEP feature
• Protect storage areas that are intended to only contain data, such as USER and CICS dynamic storage areas, from being able to execute code
New checks for IBM Health Checker for z/OS
• New checks that cover best practice advice for security configuration of regions, resources, and CICS TS use of z/OS File System (zFS)
Major improvements to security information in IBM Knowledge Center
• New information about the basic concepts of CICS TS security
• New security reference section
• Security for IP interconnectivity (IPIC)
Enhanced shared data tables
START CHANNEL support for NOCHECK and PROTECT options
• Easier to migrate from passing data by interval control (START FROM) to passing data by using a channel (START CHANNEL)
Support for passing XID to Db2
• CICS passes an XID to IBM Db2® and then instruct Db2 to share locks between threads that pass the same XID
• Avoid locking issues for the same transaction updating Db2 from other CICS regions + IMS
CICS TS open beta January 2021
Use of an alternate Liberty installation location with CICS TS open beta
• Enables the use of a consistent Liberty fix pack and Liberty angel process across an LPAR
• CICS TS installation includes IBM WebSphere® Liberty, which is used by default when running Liberty in CICS
• Can now configure the CICS JVM profile option WLP_INSTALL_DIR to specify the installation directory of the IBM z/OS Liberty Embedded base element
@CICSProgram annotation now available for use with OSGi JVM servers
• Java annotation offers a more convenient and less error-prone alternative to the CICS- MainClass approach for designating Java methods as the target of CICS PROGRAM LINKs
A consistent approach to the creation of CICS resources by applying environment-specific overrides
CICS Resource Overrides A consistent approach to the creation of CICS resources by applying environment-specific overrides
• Client requested enhancements
• Take CICS definitions from development through to production without change
• Customize CICS Resource definitions when installed, to match the environment
• Controlled, repeatable, and reliable
RFE 23769
“we are unable to use &SYSID in the RDO LIBRARY definition”… “If it can be done, it reduces our work”
RFE 24364 (6 votes)
“presents a serious drawback”… “a special symbol that automatically resolves to the CICS region name (to allow use of generic definitions for region- specific files)”
RFE 25782 (2 votes)
“unique DSNAMEs depending on target system” … “accommodate both testing requirements and duplication in our production environment”
RFE 29467 (4 votes)
“allow a known CICS identifier e.g. SYSID to be propagated as a variable”
RFE 38900 (5 votes)
“needs a CICS release number variable appended to the dsname
RFE 62230 (8 votes)
“allow for increased standardization… eliminate need to define "multiple times", and "all manner of other good benefits"”
RFE 123011 (13 votes)
How do I use it?
1. Controllable via a feature toggle
2. You specify the YAML overrides file in USSCONFIG/resourceoverrides
3. Bring up CICS!
3. Bring up CICS!
- program:
- selector:
3. Bring up CICS!
• Wide range of CICS resources supported
• YAML example and schema.
• Override file loaded during CICS start up
• Overrides applied at resource install time (be it GRPLIST, CEDA, SPI etc)
• CEDA feedback when overrides are applied
• CICS messages for audit
In the open beta
CICS TS Continuous delivery and CICS TS open beta
Resource overrides

cics technical exchange - ibm community

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