Introduction

New r17 Features

Reference

Non-Stop Processing Enhancements

A new tracking capability provides a means of making dynamic changes to the database environment of a Central Version (CV) in a fault tolerant manner.

See Change Tracking

Dynamic Journal files provide enhanced 24x7 capabilities by enabling the journal files in use by a CV to be changed while the system remains active

See Dynamic Journal Files

Two scratch enhancements are provided to improve management and performance of the CA IDMS scratch area as well as increase system availability. These enhancements include:

• Scratch above the bar
• Extensible scratch

See Scratch Enhancements

Performance Enhancements

CICS threadsafe support allows threadsafe application programs to use multiple open TCBs while accessing CA IDMS, thereby increasing throughput.

See CICS Threadsafe Support

The FORMAT JOURNAL utility is enhanced to quickly reformat already existing and formatted journal files.

See Fast Journal Format Option

To reduce CPU usage, system mode execution is available for database procedures and other Language Environment (LE) COBOL or PL/I programs.

See LE System Mode Support

CA IDMS's use of 24-bit storage usage is reduced, thereby relieving pressure on storage constrained CA IDMS and CICS systems.

See Reduced 24-bit Storage Usage

CA IDMS is enhanced to exploit zIIP processors on the z9 series for the z/OS operating system.

See zIIP Exploitation

SQL Enhancements

SQL is now available as a programming language for SQL-invoked procedures and functions.

See SQL Procedural Language Support in Routines

An SQL-invoked procedure can now return result sets in the form of rows of result tables to the procedure invoker.

See Result Sets from SQL-invoked Procedures

The new GET DIAGNOSTICS and GET STATISTICS statements can be used for diagnosing the execution of SQL statements and for returning statistical information about the current transaction.

See Enhanced Diagnostics and Statistics

Join capabilities have been enhanced by adding ANSI/ISO SQL join table support.

See Enhanced ANSI/ISO SQL JOIN Support

The new SET statement provides a simple means of assigning SQL value-expressions to host variables.

See SET Host-variable Assignment

The UPDATE statement has been enhanced to allow a query-expression to be assigned to a column.

See Extended Use of query-expression

The SET OPTIONS command facility statement has been extended with a COMMAND DELIMITER option to provide alternate delimiters for separating commands.

See SET OPTIONS COMMAND DELIMITER

SYSCA.SINGLETON_NULL is a pseudo table with only one row and no columns. It can be used for easy evaluation of SQL functions with constant parameters.

See Pseudo Table SYSCA.SINGLETON_NULL

TCP/IP Enhancements

TCP/IP support is enhanced to provide port number independence, allowing port numbers to be changed without impacting applications or DC/UCF system definitions.

See Port Number Independence

CA IDMS is enhanced to enable the selection of the stacks to be used by socket applications running in the CA IDMS system.

See Enhanced Stack Selection

A new TCP/IP system entity consolidates the definition of the TCP/IP runtime environment and allows multiple socket lines to be active at one time.

See New TCP/IP System Entity

A new TCP_NODELAY socket option enables two consecutive SEND socket requests to be executed without a delay between the sends.

See New TCP_NODELAY Option

CA IDMS now supports the following new socket functions:

• GETSERVBYNAME
• GETSERVBYPORT
• IOCTL

See New Socket Functions

TCP/IP can now be used for CA IDMS DDS communications to improve the performance of database requests to geographically distributed databases.

See DDS Connectivity Using TCP/IP

Administrative and Operational Enhancements

The linkable RHDCSDEL enhancement allows a user program to clean up security definitions for logically deleted users by linking to RHDCSDEL.

See Callable Security Cleanup

The DCMT DISPLAY SEGMENT command is enhanced to report the number of areas in a segment.

See DISPLAY SEGMENT Enhancement

A number of improvements in the detection and reporting of exceptional conditions facilitate problem diagnosis and correction.

See Enhanced Diagnostic Information

The new EXTIDENT session profile attribute makes the external identity visible to applications and ensures that it can be audited on all CVs that take part in a transaction.

See External Identity Auditing

IDD is enhanced to display only the load modules for a specified type.

See IDD Display Load Modules by Type

Index tuning enhancements are provided in the following areas:

• The PRINT INDEX utility is enhanced to better determine whether an index needs tuning.
• The TUNE INDEX utility is enhanced to perform more comprehensive tuning and to improve its ability to tune indexes while they remain available to online applications.

See Index Tuning Enhancements

The Lock Monitor (LOCKMON) system task is enhanced to do the following:

• Report the area portion of a keep longterm lock
• Display the longterm lock IDs

See LOCKMON Longterm Lock Display Enhancements

New LOOK functions report on SQL-defined database attributes and converted time stamps.

See LOOK Display Enhancements

A new operand is provided to enable including the volser of the current CA IDMS installation tape in the text of a message.

See New Message Replacement Operand

CA IDMS is enhanced with the following new startup parameters:

• Multitasking queue depth allows you to set the multitasking queue depth at startup
• Operating system subpool allows you to specify a different subpool at startup
• zIIP allows you to control use of zIIP processors in z/OS

See New Startup Parameters

Online Print Log (OLP) usability is enhanced to do the following:

• Specify seconds in FROM and TO time parameters
• Flush the data automatically in the log buffer so the most recent data displays

See Online Print Log (OLP) Usability Enhancements

The REORG utility has been enhanced in the following areas:

• Work file size estimation
• Reduced record overflows
• Reduced area sweeps when updating index UP pointers
• New options for deleting work files

See REORG Enhancements

Support of dynamic allocation has been enhanced through changes in the way data set information is recorded in the DMCL.

See Run-time DMCL File Management

New SYSGEN and DCMT facilities are provided to enable control over the generation of system and task SNAPS.

See Snap Enhancements

To more easily handle large volumes of data, CA IDMS now supports large format database files and large and extended format work files for the REORG utility.

See Support for Large and Extended Format Files

Installation of the SVC has been enhanced to avoid inadvertent installation of an unsecured SVC.

See SVC Enhancements

When dynamically allocating a data set on z/OS, and the DSN is in use by another job, you can now request that local jobs and CV startup wait for the DSN rather than fail the request.

See Wait for In-Use Data Set

The IDMSIOX2 DB User Exit supports the following new functionality:

• A Pre-Open call is enhanced with a new flag to force the database file to input mode.
• A Pre-Write call is enhanced with a new flag to reopen the database file on the next write call.

See Forcing a Database File

into Input Mode

Application Development Enhancements

The ACCEPT database statistics command is enhanced to obtain the extended VIB statistics that are provided as part of the CA IDMS runtime system.

See Accept Extended Database Statistics DML Command

The ACCEPT command is enhanced to retrieve the system ID of the current DC/UCF system.

See Accept System ID DML Command

ADSORPTS is enhanced to report on the columns of SQL tables and an unlimited number of dialogs.

See ADSORPTS Enhancements

Assembler DML programs can make use of the following new functionality:

• #CHAP allows changing the dispatching priority of the issuing task relative to its current priority.
• #GETSTG allows requesting storage above the 16-megabyte line.

See Assembler Programming Enhancements

New date-time stamp built-in functions enable CA ADS and CA OLQ applications to convert date-time stamps between their internal and external formats.

See Built-In Functions for Date-Time Stamp Conversions

Debugging line support is provided in COBOL programs so that DML commands can be designated as debugging lines.

See COBOL Compiler Debugging Line Support

The IDMSDMLC precompiler is enhanced to issue a syntax error on a FIND/OBTAIN USING clause that specifies more than one field as a sortkey.

See FIND/OBTAIN WITHIN SET USING SORT KEY DML Statement

A new IDMSIN01 function is added to retrieve runtime environment information.

See IDMSIN01 Environment Information Function

CA IDMS Tools Product Enhancements

The CA ADS Alive RECORD command is enhanced so that when records to be displayed are subschema built, only those record elements that are contained in the subschema view are displayed. Otherwise, all elements are displayed.

See CA ADS Alive RECORD Command Enhancement

CA IDMS Dictionary Migrator is enhanced to enable optional generation of MODIFY or REPLACE instead of ADD DDDL statements.

See CA IDMS Dictionary Migrator Enhancements

CA IDMS Journal Analyzer is enhanced to do the following:

• Decompress and display data records that are compressed using custom built Data Characteristic Tables (DCTs).
• Provide ranking by a cumulative value on the Management Ranking Report.

See CA IDMS Journal Analyzer Enhancements

CA IDMS Online Log Display is enhanced to force the log buffer to be written at task invocation, thereby ensuring the most recent log data is included in the display.

See CA IDMS Online Log Display Enhancement

The CA IDMS Tools Editor is enhanced to include the ECHO command that allows the primary line command to be preserved and redisplayed.

See CA IDMS Tools Editor Enhancement

A new PROKEEP installation parameter enables the automatic deletion of queue records after a specified time. This parameter can be used with the following CA IDMS Tools online products:

• CA IDMS Dictionary Migrator Assistant
• CA IDMS DME
• CA IDMS Enforcer
• CA IDMS Masterkey
• CA IDMS SASO

See CA IDMS Tools Queue Record Deletion Enhancement

CA IDMS Tools users can now provide their own site-specific SEGMENT and DBNAME values for each database associated with a CA IDMS Tools product.

See CA IDMS Tools Site-Specific Segment Name and Database Name Enhancement

New for r17 SP1

Reference

All CA IDMS product fixes are packaged as module replacements PTFs. When applying a PTF, prerequisites are required and must not be removed. Starting with SP1, a maintenance tape is a collection of PTFs and the PTFs for CA IDMS/DB, CA IDMS Tools and CA Endevor/DB are now installed together. CA IDMS customers on z/OS may use CA Mainframe Software Manager (MSM) to apply maintenance to a CA IDMS r17 SMP/E CSI that is migrated to MSM.

For more information, see the CA IDMS Installation and Maintenance Guide-z/OS, CA IDMS Installation and Maintenance Guide-z/VSE, and CA IDMS Installation and Maintenance Guide-z/VM.

The #UCFBTCH macro has been enhanced to allow optional suppression of printing the message "UCFBTCH S015 - NOTHING FOR PRINTER TO PRINT"

For more information, see the CA IDMS System Operations Guide.

Support has been provided for the z/VSE and z/VM operating systems.

Any special requirements for use of a feature or the availability of a feature specific to each operating system is documented in place with each feature.

IDMS now exploits the IBM Health Checker Facility.Each Health Check

issues its output as messages, which you can view using SDSF,the

HZSPRINT utility, or a log stream that collects a history of check output. If a check finds a potential problem, it issues a WTO message. We will call these messages exceptions. The check exception messages are issued both as WTOs and also to the message buffer. The WTO version contains only the message text, while the exception message in the message buffer includes both the text and explanation of the potential problem found, including the severity, as well as information on what to do to fix the the potential problem.

For more information, see the CA IDMS System Operations Guide.