General Usage Best Practices › Generate a Maintenance Flat File

Generate a Maintenance Flat File

The flat file is a file that comprises multiple maintenance packages and their prerequisites that you want to receive in or apply to a specific SMP/E environment.

Consider using a flat file in the following cases:

• You have your own procedures for applying maintenance on your site. You want to apply maintenance outside of CA CSM.
• You want to receive or apply maintenance on a system where CA CSM is not installed.
• You want to receive or apply maintenance on a system that does not have an internet connection.

For example, you have a system where CA CSM is not installed. On that system, you have an SMP/E environment that has no maintenance applied or accepted. Use CA CSM on another system to generate a flat file with all available maintenance packages that are applicable to the SMP/E environment. Then, copy the flat file to the system where the SMP/E environment is located, and process it accordingly to your site routines. You can use RECEIVE and APPLY SMP/E statements for your routines. These statements are provided in the task output.

Note: If the system where CA CSM is not available is missing the HOLDDATA, you can obtain it from the HOLDDATA file that is generated together with the flat file.

The following sample is an example of the job that receives the maintenance packages from the flat file to your SMP/E environment. To receive HOLDDATA, uncomment the HOLDDATA and SMPHOLD statements.

      //********************************************************************
      //S1       EXEC PGM=GIMSMP,                                            
      //         PARM='PROCESS=WAIT',                                        
      //         DYNAMNBR=120                                                
      //*                                                      
      //* SMP FILES                                                          
      //*                                                                    
      //SMPCSI   DD DISP=SHR,DSN=MF20.CSM.FITCOPY.AUDITOR4.CSI              
      //*                                                                    
      //*                                                                    
      //SMPCNTL  DD *                                                        
        SET    BOUNDARY (GLOBAL)                                             
                        .                                                    
        RECEIVE                                                              
               SYSMODS                                                       
      //*      HOLDDATA                                            
                      .                                                      
      //SMPPTFIN DD DISP=(SHR,KEEP),DSN=PUBLIC.CSM.FLATFILE.FF01              
      //* SMPHOLD DD DISP=(SHR,KEEP),DSN=PUBLIC.CSM.FLATFILE.FF01.HOLD    
      //*********************************************************************

Business Value:

Using the flat file helps you save time and effort. You do not have to copy all maintenance packages one by one, or you do not have to search for the prerequisite packages.

Additional Considerations:

If you want to apply maintenance from a flat file, verify that the SMP/E environment from which you generate the flat file (source SMP/E environment) and the SMP/E environment where you want to apply the maintenance from the generated flat file (target SMP/E environment) are synchronized. That is, these two SMP/E environments must have the same maintenance received, applied, and accepted.

To ensure that your SMP/E environments remain synchronized, configure CA CSM to reject any unneeded maintenance, that is, the maintenance that the maintenance wizard had to process to evaluate dependencies. Rejecting the maintenance ensures that the SMP/E environment global zone that you are using to generate the flat file is restored to the original state. That way, it remains synchronized with your other SMP/E environments. To set up CA CSM to reject the unneeded maintenance, go to Settings tab, click the Software Installation link under System Settings in the Settings section on the left side, and select the Reject Received Maintenance check box.

If the unneeded maintenance was not rejected, the global zone would have the received maintenance packages that do not need to be applied. The global zone would no longer be synchronized with the global zone of the SMP/E environment that you maintain with the flat file. CA CSM would treat the maintenance as already received and not required to be received in any other SMP/E environment.

More Information:

For more information, see the online help.