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Introduction

What is ChangeMan ZDD?

ChangeMan ZDD is a software infrastructure technology that simulates a network file system. It provides seamless access to data sets, jobs, and ChangeMan ZMF® components on a z/OS® system, from a Windows® platform. No special execution environment or programming interface is required. Data sets, job output, and ChangeMan ZMF components are accessed as though they were local files on your PC or files on a Windows network.

For a more detailed introduction to ChangeMan ZDD, see the ChangeMan® ZDD User’s Guide.

What is Automation?

Automation is a technology that allows you to access the functionality of an application, such as ChangeMan ZDD, and use it in your own programs or scripts. Automation is based upon the Component Object Model (COM). COM is a standard software architecture that separates code into self-contained objects or components.

Using Automation, ChangeMan ZDD exposes its functionality as a set of programmable objects. Each object can be programmatically examined and controlled. Examples of ChangeMan ZDD objects are: network, servers, and folders.

Each object exposes a set of properties and methods. A property is an attribute of an object that can be set or retrieved. A method is a function that performs some action on an object. For a server object, examples of properties are server name or IP address; examples of methods are logon or logoff.

A special type of object is a collection object, which contains a set of other objects. A servers object is a collection of server objects, and a folders object is a collection of folder objects.

The ChangeMan ZDD Automation interface allows ChangeMan ZDD operations to be performed from Visual Basic®, C++, VBScript, JScript®, or any other language that supports COM objects. Following are some typical operations you can perform from a program or script:

In this document, examples are shown in both VBScript and JScript. Other languages may be used as well, but examples are not given.

Security

ChangeMan ZDD is compatible with RACF®, CA-ACF2®, and CA-Top Secret®.

Access to mainframe objects and functions is granted through your mainframe security system. You are required to provide your user ID and password in ChangeMan ZDD to connect to the mainframe.

The operation of ChangeMan ZDD does not affect the existing operation of either mainframe-based applications or PC network operations.

Compatibility

PC Requirements

  • Windows® operating system (refer to the Readme for the supported versions)

  • 10 megabytes (MB) of available disk space

  • CD-ROM drive or access to a CD-ROM over a network

  • VGA or higher-resolution display adapter

  • Microsoft® Mouse or compatible pointing device

Mainframe Server Requirements

  • ChangeMan ZDD server installed on the mainframe LPARs to be accessed by ChangeMan ZDD on your PC.

  • IBM® z/OS® operating system (any version supported by IBM).

  • TCP/IP must be installed and running.

ChangeMan ZMF Requirements

One of the following releases are required for accessing ChangeMan ZMF functionality from your program or script:

  • ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 - any release

  • ChangeMan ZMF 7.1 - any release

  • ChangeMan ZMF 6.1 - any release

Note

When using ChangeMan ZDD with earlier releases of ChangeMan ZMF, only the functionality supported within that ChangeMan ZMF release will be available.

Changes

A number of class names in ZDD's COM programming interface have been renamed so that they are now consistent with the .NET programming interface. This has been a source of confusion in the past.

These class names are primarily used to describe the ZDD COM interface in the documentation.

This has no impact on customer scripts or Visual Basic because these names are not used in scripting languages. The names would only need to be changed if you write a C++ program to invoke the COM interface.

The following class names have been renamed:

  • ZosChangeManFolder --> ZosChangeManInstance

  • ZosChangeManFolders --> ZosChangeManInstance

  • ZosFileExtension --> ZosFileExtensionMapping

  • ZosFileExtensions --> ZosFileExtensionMappings

  • ZosDataType --> ZosFileFormatMapping

  • ZosDataTypes --> ZosFileFormatMappings

  • ZosFilters --> ZosNameFilters

  • ZosLibType --> ZosLibypeMapping

  • ZosLibTypes --> ZosLibTypeMappings

  • ZosPrefix --> ZosPrefixMapping

  • ZosPrefixes --> ZosPrefixMappings

In the event that someone is actually using C++ to invoke the COM interface, then they can either change the names above, or simply add the following definitions to the program:

#define ZosChangeManFolder ZosChangeManInstance
#define ZosChangeManFolders ZosChangeManInstance
#define ZosFileExtension ZosFileExtensionMapping
#define ZosFileExtensions ZosFileExtensionMappings
#define ZosDataType ZosFileFormatMapping
#define ZosDataTypes ZosFileFormatMappings
#define ZosFilters ZosNameFilters
#define ZosLibType ZosLibypeMapping
#define ZosLibTypes ZosLibTypeMappings
#define ZosPrefix ZosPrefixMapping
#define ZosPrefixes ZosPrefixMappings
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