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What is Electronic Software Delivery?

CA supports a Pax-Enhanced ESD process that uses a UNIX portable archive interchange (pax) file that contains the product package.

The CA Electronic Software Delivery (ESD) process lets you download a product package in a zip file or compressed individual product components from the CA Support Online Download Center or from directories on your CA product DVD. This guide explains the steps to copy pax files from a product DVD. To download pax files from support online, go to the Download Center on https://support.ca.com/.

The steps in this guide provide instructions for SMP/E CA product installation on z/OS systems.

The pax format provides several advantages for ESD:

• It supports virtually any file type or data set type, including those for products that are based on new technology (for example, Java).
• It supports combining a large number of data sets into a single file to receive in a single download.
• It can be unpacked using standard utilities that are available on every z/OS system. Customers no longer have to install CA-proprietary utility programs or download additional software to complete the installation process.

The Pax Enhanced ESD process is the foundation on which the CA Mainframe Software Manager (MSM) was built. CA MSM can perform the required un-packing tasks.

Important! Most CA products have transitioned to the pax format and must be processed using the Pax-Enhanced ESD process. A small number of products are still packaged using the traditional ESD format or as legacy .AWS or .CDTAPE files. For traditional installation downloads, see the Traditional ESD User Guide.