Features Added in Enterprise Test Server 3.0

This release provides enhancements in the following areas:

Application Server JCA support for Enterprise Server

In this release, EJBGEN has been updated to generate an EAR file as a part of the COBOL deployment process, which enables you to deploy EJBs to Java Application Server.

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CICS Web Services

In this release, CICS Web services support includes the following additional features:

  • CICS JSON Web services for request/response and RESTful JSON. CICS Web Services support has been extended to allow JSON/REST requests to be used in both requestor and provider mode.
  • Use of container-based mappings

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Data File Tools

This release provides the following enhancements to Data File Tools:

  • Opening files in shared mode - it is now possible to switch between read-only shared and edit modes. While a file is open in shared mode, others users can only open it in shared mode to ensure data consistency between users.
  • Enterprise Server-level of security when accessing files - there is an improved level of security when exchanging data between Data File Tools and the targeted enterprise server instance. Users must now provide a user ID, group and a password when they try to access and view datasets in enterprise server instances. These are used for authentication and authorization checks to provide the same access level as Enterprise Server.
  • Opening datasets using SSL - communication to a region is now possible using SSL. To enable the SSL communication, you need to provide a Java trust store which contains either a CA root certificate or a self-signed certificate of the region that it is communicating to. Java and the targeted region SSL configurations need to meet each other's standards in order for the communication to succeed.

    This feature enables you to secure the information exchange between Data File Tools and the targeted enterprise server.

  • Auditing of access and updates on datasets - Audit Manager now audits the access and updates on datasets via Data File Tools.
  • Support for existing .pro files - enables you to use your existing editor profiles.
  • Support for existing .str files - enables you to use your existing COBOL structure files.
  • Automatic timeout - if no internal operations or external actions (such as a mouse click) have been detected for 30 minutes, Data File Tools now displays a countdown message. If the user does not take any decision within the specified period, Data File Tools closes all opened files.

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Database access - HCOSS

This release provides a new Offline Schema Extract feature – a batch solution that migrates a z/OS DB2 catalog to SQL Server without direct access to z/OS DB2.

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Documentation

The following new sections have been added to the product help:

  • Where do I start? - located on the launch page of the product help, this section provides the information you need in order to get started depending on which aspects of the product you need to get to grips with first.
  • Configuring an SSL Client Connection to a Mainframe - includes instructions about how to configure client applications to connect to MFA and z/Server mainframe via AT-TLS in a zOS environment.

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Enterprise Server

Improvements are available in the following areas:

EXEC CICS TRANSFORM:

  • Enterprise Server now supports the XMLTODATA and DATATOXML options of this API.

JCL spool

The JCL spool repository infrastructure has been redesigned to significantly improve its performance. The improvements include:

  • A more disk-efficient infrastructure, reducing the space required by the spool files by up to 75% in some cases.
  • Improved internal indexing, resulting in quicker generation of messages and sysout records during processing.
  • Improved navigation of spool queues: job status Complete replaces the Output, Out Hold, and Printed statuses, and completed jobs with any combination of sysout files can be displayed in a single list.
  • Increased range of job numbers, from five digits to seven digits.
    Important: These changes are automatically in place for new enterprise servers that you create. To enable these updates to existing enterprise servers, you must run a conversion utility before any JCL processing is permitted. Follow the To run the spool conversion utility process, detailed in Significant Changes in Behavior, for each existing JES-enabled enterprise server you have.

Long user IDs and passwords:

  • Enterprise Server now supports user IDs and passwords of up to 100 characters. It is possible to map IDs from long to short (or vice versa) to enable compatibility with programs that do not support long names.

Multi-factor sign-on:

  • Multi-factor authentication enables users to sign on to Enterprise Server CICS without entering a username and password. A secure user identifier, such as a certificate, is mapped to a username and is used to generate a passtoken. It is possible to use smartcards, biometrics, or other authentication systems to identify yourself to the system. The username and passtoken can then be used to log on to CICS in an automated way.

    The supported sign-on mechanisms are Express Logon Feature (ELF) and Automated Sign-On for Mainframe (ASM).

SHA-256 support in DemoCA:

  • By default, the Demonstration Certificate Authority (CA) now signs certificates with SHA-256. This ensures that the demonstration or evaluation certificates will be accepted by modern browsers and other software that has enhanced security requirements.

Syslog auditing:

  • Enterprise Server now supports auditing using syslog events, which can be consumed by a wide range of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) products. This replaces the Audit Manager auditing solution. Syslog auditing provides a much more efficient auditing mechanism, with significantly less impact on overall speed.

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iFileshare

iFileshare is no longer considered an Early Adopter Program, and contains the following enhancements in this release:
  • An improved failover and recovery process. iFileshare now supports full recovery of nodes in the group. For high availability (HA-VSAM) groups, servers can now rejoin the group without the entire group having to be restarted. In addition:
    • A primary failover now results in a takeover from the most suitable node.
    • If configured, external clients will automatically reconnect to the new primary and will issue a notification if the transaction has been lost.
    • A failed node, when restarted, will rejoin the group, recover its files and request a log update from the current primary. Once this task has completed it will be considered an active hot-standby and will continue to process replication requests as normal.
    • Users will experience a higher level of uptime/availability with their Fileshare configuration and will be able to recover from errors more easily.
  • A new exit procedure, ifsexitproc.cbl, can be configured to automate some aspects of iFileshare behavior.
  • The iFileshare Control page in ESMAC contains details of the current iFileshare high availability group.
  • The following new iFileshare-specific environment variables are available:
    • FSWRKDIR - enables you to specify the Fileshare working directory, overriding the default, which is the system directory of the region.
    • FSCHKLFH - determines if a check is performed when a high availability group is started, to test the consistency of the data files within the group.
  • The database reference file (dbase.ref) now supports wildcard matching for filenames, allowing you to perform operations on multiple files at once; for example: fs /d dbase.ref /f data\* adds the entire contents of the data directory to the database reference file.

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IMS support

A new MFSGEN Compiler directive, CONTMVS, has been added to enable the compiler to parse MFS continuation lines (those continued without a terminating comma) by treating the line that follows as a comment line, just as is done on the mainframe.

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Mainframe Access (MFA)

This release provides the following improvements:

  • Running MFA client in 64-bit processes - you can now call the MFA client modules from 64-bit applications and take advantage of the wider memory addressing available to those modules.
  • MFA client CTF tracing - MFDAS now supports CTF tracing. This provides better diagnostics of issues and helps increase turnaround on issues. CTF is common to a number of Micro Focus modules so cross-component logging can be turned on from a single place.
  • Endevor functions - the following functions are now available to Enterprise Sync and MFDAS: DELETE, DIRX, GENERATE, GETENQI, LIST, MOVE, SIGNIN and TRANSFER.

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Parent topic: New Features
Related reference
Application Server JCA support
Data File Tools
iFileshare