enterprise product suite 2.2.2

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "enterprise product suite 2.2.2"

Helen Briggs
5 years ago
Views:

1 enterprise product suite WHAT S NEW WHAT S NEW IN THE ENTERPRISE PRODUCT SUITE VERSION This What s New document covers new features and functions in the latest release of the Micro Focus Product Suite. This covers updates to the following products: Micro Focus Developer which provides a contemporary development suite for developing and maintaining mainframe applications whether the target deployment is on or off the mainframe. Includes Developer Connect, Developer, and Developer for z variants. Micro Focus Test Server which provides a comprehensive test platform that takes advantage of low cost processing power on Windows environments to provide scalable capacity for testing z/os applications without consuming z/os resources. Micro Focus Server which provides the execution environment to deploy fit-for-purpose mainframe workload on Linux, UNIX and Windows (LUW) environments on z, standalone virtual servers or the cloud. If you are already familiar with the Product Suite then this document will help you quickly understand the new capabilities within the release, and the benefits they deliver in each of the solution areas. SPECIFIC FUNCTIONAL IMPROVEMENTS 1. Additional Platform Support Extending platform support New platforms supported in this release are listed below Platforms Developer Connect Developer Developer for z Test Server Server Red Hat (Intel) 7.0 x x Red Hat (OS/390) 7.0 x x Extending the supported platforms means: Future proofing your code and data from platform change Greater choice and flexibility on where to develop and deploy your applications The freedom to experiment with no additional investment

2 2. IDEs New capability available in the Eclipse IDE The following new functionality is specific to the Eclipse variant of Developer: Developer now supports Eclipse versions 4.2 and 4.3. Scripts are provided to allow you to install Micro Focus plug-in technology directly into your own copy of Eclipse A smart editor for editing PL/I on and off the mainframe is now available. This provides features such as background parsing of PL/I code for error highlighting, content assist, code colorization, common PL/I templates and an outline view. The latest Rumba version is now integrated directly into the Developer IDE Client side tools are now available to help you trouble shoot the set up of remote development projects Support for remote COBOL JVM projects has been enhanced to allow SQL statements and debugging with Copyview enabled Improvements to the Developer IDE focused around usability ensure that the tools are easy to use and the developer workflow is logical and simple. This improves adoption and provides better developer efficiency when developing and maintaining enterprise applications. Additional capability available in the Visual Studio IDE The following functionality is specific to the Visual Studio variant of Developer: The Expanded Copybook View now supports Intellisense, collapsing and expanding of outlining regions, and code snippets COBOL Reports are now readily available from a context menu when editing COBOL source. This includes reports on Dead Code, Unreferenced Data, Undeclared Procedures, Copybook Structure, Program Statistics and Unexecuted Procedures Call Hierarchy improvements mean that it now shows entry points, types and members for a project It is now easier to select and configure the Oracle Pro*COBOL COBSQL preprocessor from within the IDE Developing and testing enterprise applications in the.net framework is now easier as Managed code Mainframe Sub-System (MSS) projects can be associated with a managed CICS or Batch region directly from the IDE. Console log information from this region can then be viewed in the Visual Studio Output window JCL can be submitted to an associated region through context menu options and CICS applications can now be accessed through the embedded TN3270 Rumba mainframe display Improvements to the Developer IDE focused around usability ensure that the tools are easy to use and the developer workflow is logical and simple. This improves adoption and provides better developer efficiency when developing and maintaining enterprise applications.

3 3. Application Workflow Manager and Mainframe Integration Extending Application Workflow Manager (AWM) The following functionality has been added to the Application Workflow Manage to improve usability and more flexibility on building workflow into the Eclipse IDE New capabilities to improve workflow and tool integration The Model Editor now supports the definition of User Actions which are able to process any number of selected tree or table elements in one execution step. For example, with this new feature you can model a mass compile function, which compiles selected sources in one remote batch job User Actions performance has been improved by allow these to run as an Eclipse background process. This means for example a developer does not have to wait until a long action has finished before they are permitted to execute other actions In a Remote mainframe Edit sessions with COBOL and PL/I any dependency files (COPYBOOKS or Include file) are download on bulk significantly improving performance of edit sessions and background parsing Editor Actions can now be modeled that support the execution of ISPF Edit Macros on the mainframe from directly within an Eclipse editor Improved refreshing of Eclipse Team Developer Tree Views now means that there is more flexibility refreshing the user interface if actions have an impact on the tree structure New Usability improvements when using the AWM or Models A new Search Dialog is available in the model editor that allows searching for text strings. This means it is easier to navigate around a model positioning the Editor to the relevant line It is now more intuitive to model OSCOMMAND tools as the Input-/Output Parameter Separator are now attributes of the Tool Descriptor Closed AWM views can now be redisplayed by clicking a new button in the team developer perspective Data displayed in the Team Developer Table View can now be sorted in the same way as any other Eclipse table view Two files in the MVS Explorer view can now be compared by selecting both and then the Compare with each other action from the context menu. This display differences in the Eclipse Compare Editor These improvements provide more flexibility and control when customizing Eclipse to integrate mainframe tools and processes. This means the entire development lifecycle can be driven from a single Eclipse-based IDE, improving developer adoption and time to value. 4. Mainframe Compatibility Extended support for IBM COBOL 5.1 Support has been added for the following IBM COBOL 5.1 features: UNBOUNDED tables and groups Using the XML-INFORMATION special register when doing XML PARSE functions NAME, TYPE OF and SUPPRESS clauses of the XML GENERATE function Additional compatibility with IBM COBOL 5.1 means organizations can develop and test mainframe applications under Developer or Test Server with no change. For customers looking to deploy workload onto alternative platforms, this support minimizes code changes when moving COBOL 5.1-based programs to the new platform.

4 Support for DBCS EBCDIC/ASCII Conversions Support is now provided by default EBCDIC to ASCII conversion of double byte character sets. As well as Japanese the following code-sets are now supported out of the box Simplified Chinese (China): 2086 Korea: 2082 Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) also known as Big 5: 2886 Thai: 0838 (single byte) The existing mechanism for building custom character conversion routines is still available. Standard EBCDIC to ASCII code-set conversion routines now make it easier for customers to deploy enterprise applications into countries where double byte character handling is a requirement. 5. Server Performance Significant performance improvements on IBM zlinux The Server run time environment has been enhanced to take advantage of specific 390 processor instructions for handling packed decimal (COMP-3) data. This allows for significant performance gains for applications that make use of COMP-3 data items when these are moved to the zlinux platform. Customers who have already moved or are targeting application workload on the zlinux environment can now take advantage of significant performance improvements for those applications that make extensive use of packed decimal data. 6. SQL Support Improved support in SQL option for DB2 Support for IBM mainframe DB2 has been improved to now include Support for the XML data type via the XDB Link option to data residing in tables on the mainframe RID scalar function is now fully supported Support for DSNUTILB LOAD LOG=NO option is provided Enhanced SQL outer join processing that use table expressions Customers who are using Developer to develop and test mainframe applications off the mainframe now have greater compatibility with the latest features of IBM DB2.

5 Improved database host compatibility support IBM DB2 LUW A new DB2 ECM compiler directive is available (GEN-HV-FROM-GROUP). This generates host variables for all elementary data items when a multiple-level group variable is used in a FETCH or singleton SELECT DB2 statement. Microsoft SQL Server Support is now provided for multi-row INSERT operations as well as DATE/TIME formatting through the HCOSS batch utilities. Oracle New COBSQL KEEPCOMP directive resolves COMP/COMP-5 issues with Oracle applications on little-endian platforms. Generic data access through OpenESQL The following features are now available through the Micro Focus OpenESQL component Support for SQL Server New SQL Compiler directive options including DETECTDATE=SERVER to resolves host variable alignment with column data types in a SQL table GEN-HV-FROM-GROUP to generate host variables for all elementary data items when a multiple-level group variable is used in a FETCH or singleton SELECT SQL statement. Organizations moving workloads from a z/os environment onto alternative server environments now have greater flexibility on the backend database they choose making it easier moving code and data to the target platform. Improved XA Switch modules The XA switch module updates now supports Oracle User Impersonation when statically registered. This allows you to specify which XA resource definitions use the User Impersonation. This is available for Windows and UNIX. Specifying which XA resource definitions uses User Impersonation under Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. Organizations moving workloads from a z/os environment onto alternative server environments now have greater flexibility on the backend database they choose making it easier moving code and data to the target platform.

6 7. Server Extended Micro Focus External Call Interface (ECI) Java Clients using the Micro Focus External Call interface can now use channels/ containers to send information greater than the 32K limit imposed by COMMAREA. TRANCLASS Support Transaction classes give you a mechanism to limit the number of CICS tasks in your system. By spreading tasks across a number of transaction classes and controlling the maximum number that can be dispatched within each transaction class, you can control resource contention. In this release this capability is classified as Technology Preview. VSAM Share Option Sharing data files across Server regions is now supported for CICS as well as batch environments. Organizations can now more easily integrate JAVA clients into Server, have additional capabilities to take advantage of transaction classes and can now scale our VSAM file access so that multiple regions can share the same data. This makes it easier to move CICS workload to alternative server platforms with minimal change. Significant performance improvements when using ESF caching The Server External Security Facility (ESF) now supports caching the results of some security queries. Depending on the type and number of security authorization requests issued, customers can see significantly improvements in the performance of Server instances that are configured to use external security. 8. Server.NET Improved mainframe compatibility CICS/JCL Subsystem Started Task Manager (SSTM) Server for.net (ES.NET) now provides JES functionality through the Subsystem Started Task Manager (SSTM) support within a CICS region. This support allows CICS spooling so that files can be spooled to the JES region or submitted via JCL to its internal reader using the SPOOLOPEN, SPOOLWRITE and SPOOLCLOSE APIs. MQ Series support The IBM WebSphere MQ.NET managed code client only provides a class library interface and not the traditional MQI (MQ programming interface), With this release the MQI interface has been implemented within ES.NET. This allows applications that utilize the MQI to be able to run unchanged. Improved mainframe compatibility means organizations can more easily move workloads from a z/os environment onto a managed Server.NET environment.

7 Easier and more flexible system configuration JCL - Initiator node affinity JES initiators can now be associated with a particular machine allowing certain types of work to be run on a specific machine. For example running a particular job on a machine where specific third party software is installed. Administration and Diagnostics More detailed diagnostic information can now be gathered from a running region. This allows a systems administrator to now see which sessions are attached to the region, what tasks are active and which are queued. Improved Azure deployment Azure deployments now use the latest guest OS which allows the application to take advantage of performance improvements and the latest.net framework support. These improvements make it easier for organizations to manage and control mainframe workloads that have been moved to a managed.net or Azure environment. 9. Additional PL/I Support Extending PL/I Language support and compatibility The Open PL/I compiler now supports the following The PACKAGE statement A new bitsltr compiler option for Intel Platforms Early Adopter support for the GRAPHIC data type which can be used for double byte character handling The Open PL/I macro-processor has been extended in the following areas: New MACLMAR, MACRMAR, and REPLACE builtin functions. Support for the compound operators +=, -=, *=, \=, = Hex Literals are now fully supported Improved functionality and greater language compatibility makes it easier for organizations to move PL/I workloads from a z/os environment onto an alternative server platform. Extending PL/I runtime options The PL/I runtime environment now provides support for Enhanced PL/I ON UNIT handling to provide implicit and explicit actions in line with industry standards Improved PL/I Error Handling so that EXEC CICS HANDLE ABEND is managed properly Better performance of the HEX and TRANSLATE Builtin functions New support for the PRESENT Builtin Function. Improved run-time functionality and diagnostics make it easier for customers to move, test and tune PL/I workload that has been moved to alternative server platforms.

8 Easier editing of PL/I Data structures from the IDE The support for editing PL/I data using PL/I data structures is now fully supported. PL/I Structure Maps (.str) can now be easily generated from within either the Developer Visual Studio- or Eclipse-based IDEs. These structure maps are used by the Data File Tools to generate a formatted layout for a PL/I Data File. Data File Tools have been enhanced to support both the PIC 9 fields and the BIT data types. Using these formatted record layouts, developers can now easily view and modify a PL/I data record without having to know the offset, length and raw format of the data item. Organizations moving z/os PL/I workloads onto alternative execution environments now have a much easier way to edit and manipulate PL/I data records. PL/I Debugger enhancements The PL/I Debugger now provides greater control when debugging PL/I applications by supporting Improved notification of SIGNALS caught by the PL/I Runtime and conditions such as ERROR and UNDEFINEDFILE etc. A new Watch Panel in the Java Debugger user interface allows for setting and monitoring of variable changes PL/I CICS programs utilizing the EXEC CICS LINK API Improved debug functionality makes it easier for developers to track and resolve stubborn run-time issues when moving PL/I workloads onto an alternative server environment. 10. Eclipse-based AMB Support Additional support for AppMaster Builder (AMB) projects The AppMaster Builder (AMB) Database View in within the AMB Eclipse plug-in is now supported. This means that there is no need for Eclipse based AMB plug-in users to revert back to AMB/MFE EE to maintain their database views. MFE EE AppMaster Builder customers can now upgrade to the latest Micro Focus development technology with minimal change, preserving their investment in this technology whilst allowing them to take advantage of the latest development technology. For additional information please visit: Micro Focus Limited. All rights reserved. MICRO FOCUS, the Micro Focus logo, among others, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Micro Focus Limited or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies in the United Kingdom, United States and other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. DSWNEPS1114

Solution overview VISUAL COBOL BUSINESS CHALLENGE SOLUTION OVERVIEW BUSINESS BENEFIT

Solution overview VISUAL COBOL BUSINESS CHALLENGE SOLUTION OVERVIEW BUSINESS BENEFIT BUSINESS CHALLENGE There is an increasing demand from users of business software for easier to use applications which integrate with other business systems. As a result IT organizations are being asked