With the Version 7.6 release of IBM® Rational® Developer for System z®, IBM offers mainframe application developers increased productivity and improved application quality. This version these key enhancements:

• Next-generation development environment for COBOL and PL/I
• Support for IBM® CICS® Version 4.1 and IBM® IMS™ Version 11
• Service-oriented architecture (SOA), Web services, and RESTful services enhancements
• Integrated application life cycle enhancements
• Easier installation, improved performance and usability

Next-generation development environment for COBOL and PL/I

The COBOL and PL/I editors have been enhanced to add capabilities such as:

• Syntax check as you type, which increases productivity by notifying developers immediately when syntax errors occur, thus eliminating the need for developers to submit syntax check jobs as often
• Editor linkability, which assists with easily finding and jumping to other elements in your applications. For example, click the "Open declaration" action to jump to the working storage definition of a data item

Back to top

Support for CICS V4.1 and IMS V11

Rational Developer for System z now supports new capabilities in CICS 4.1 and IMS V11.

New support for CICS V4.1

• CICS V4.1 verbs are supported in syntax check, Content Assist, and unit build.
• Support for new CICS modernization architectures, such as service component architecture (SCA), event processing, and application bundle deployment through CICS Explorer. (See Figure 1.)

Larger view of Figure 1.

• CICS Explorer is integrated with the Application Deployment Manager (ADM) so that developers can query, define, and install needed CICS resources, services, and service component architecture (SCA) bundles. The combination of CICS Explorer and ADM simplifies the CICS development process by automating several manual steps in the service deployment and testing cycle. (See Figure 2.)

New support for IMS V11

• Support has been added for new IMS Web services and RESTful service capabilities.
• More than 71 IMS code generation wizards have been added to help new users create IMS processing statements in COBOL programs, including traditional DL/1 processing, as well as new capabilities, such as ICAL execution.

Back to top

SOA, Web services, and RESTful services enhancements

Rational Developer for System z now provides tools for Web 2.0-style RESTful services for both CICS and IMS. These Rational Developer for System z tools can create:

• CICS ATOM feeds from TS Queues, VSAM datasets, other CICS COMMAREA or Channel-based transactional programs in application lifecycle.
• CICS RESTful services using XSDBind-creation wizards to help exploit existing processing and to transform to XML data and services
• IMS Info 2.0 and IBM® Lotus® Mashup center deployments for IMS transactional applications

Rational Developer for System z also has added many Web service creation enhancements:

• Support for multi-segment messages in IMS Web services
• Support for multi-container messages in CICS
• Support for meet-in-the-middle mapping for XML attributes
• Support for CICS PL/I top-down code creation
• Support for CICS MTOM messages, a typical services model when a DataPower appliance is used in combination with CICS

Back to top

Integrated application life cycle enhancements

CA Endevor® Software Change Manager

Rational Developer for System z now includes support for CA Endevor® source control manager (Figure 3):

• Views for displaying, searching, and filtering environments, systems, subsystems, stages, and types
• Integration with Endevor GENERATE processing
• Tools for working with Endevor packages
• Ability to inspect Endevor member history or compare members at different versions and stages
• Integration with IBM System z remote projects, which facilitates the use of typical Rational Developer for System z functions, such as Content Assist, open copybook, unit build, compare, and more

Rational Team Concert for System z

Rational Developer for System z integrates with the IBM® Rational Team Concert® for System z Version 2 server, which offers these capabilities, among others:

• Work Item sharing and collaboration tools
• Instant messaging integration with team members
• Project planning tools
• Change tracking and analysis tools to investigate why changes are made to code

Collaborative Team Debugging option

• Rational Developer for System z, Rational Team Concert for System z, and the IBM Debug Tool can be used together to provide Collaborative Team Debugging, which enables a single debugging sessions to be shared among multiple developers for enhanced, cross-platform debugging.
• This capability is enabled for COBOL, PL/I, C++, Java™, and assembler for CICS, IMS, batch, IBM® DB2®, and IBM® WebSphere® Application Server.

Fault Analyzer integration

• Browse the Fault Analyzer ABEND reports during CICS, IMS, batch, Java, WebSphere, and other runtimes.

File Manager Integration

• Enhanced File Manager integration, enabled with IBM File Manager Version 10.1, facilitates access to Keyed Sequence Data Set (KSDS) files from the IBM Rational Developer for System z workbench.
• New VSAM utility operations such as copy and allocate-like available from the Remote System Explorer browser

Web services governance

• Using the Eclipse plug-in for the WebSphere Registry and Repository, RDz can integrate with Web Service test and production governance systems.

Back to top

Easier installation, improved performance and usability

With this release, IBM has enhanced improved the installation experience and improved the performance and usability of Rational Developer for System z in several ways.

Easier to install

• The host installation and configuration process is simplified to reduce the amount of time that it takes to install, configure, or upgrade the software after initial purchase. New installation instructions have been included to provide a checklist for mainframe installers.
• Support for smartcard security login to the host components has been added.

Better performance

The Rational Developer for System z client and host components have been enhanced to improve performance. For example:

• Editing Content Assist dialog time has been decreased by up to 80%.
• Source code download and upload time has been decreased by up to 35%.
• Faster real-time syntax check.
• Host resource requirements for the File Manager integration are reduced when used in combination with IBM File Manager V10.1, thereby enabling more users to access data on the host concurrently.

Smaller client size

Enhancements in the Rational Developer for System z client installation process provide a 25% decrease in a typical workstation size. This results in much smaller hardware requirement for users, both on and off the host, which lowers hardware costs and simplifies the environment.

• Installation panels allow users to be more selective as to which components are installed, which reduces the workstation size and the visual clutter on the developer's interface.
• The Rational Developer for System z Information Center can now be accessed from IBM.com, or from a common server in the customer environment, or from the software itself, on the developer's workstation. In addition to reducing the client size, remote Help can provide a centralized location for easy documentation updates and rollout of new documentation.

Resources

Learn

• Learn about other applications in the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform, including collaboration tools for parallel development and geographically dispersed teams, plus specialized software for architecture management, asset management, change and release management, integrated requirements management, process and portfolio management, and quality management. You can find product manuals, installation guides, and other documentation in the IBM Rational Online Documentation Center.
  
  
• Visit the Rational software area on developerWorks for technical resources and best practices for Rational Software Delivery Platform products.
  
  
• Explore Rational computer-based, Web-based, and instructor-led online courses. Hone your skills and learn more about Rational tools with these courses, which range from introductory to advanced. The courses on this catalog are available for purchase through computer-based training or Web-based training. Additionally, some "Getting Started" courses are available free of charge.
  
  
• Subscribe to the IBM developerWorks newsletter, a weekly update on the best of developerWorks tutorials, articles, downloads, community activities, webcasts and events.
  
  
• Browse the technology bookstore for books on these and other technical topics.
  
  

Get products and technologies

• Download trial versions of IBM Rational software.
  
  
• Download these IBM product evaluation versions and get your hands on application development tools and middleware products from DB2®, Lotus®, Tivoli®, and WebSphere®.
  
  

Discuss

• Check out developerWorks blogs and get involved in the developerWorks community.
  
  

About the author

Comments (Undergoing maintenance)

Back to top

Trademarks  |  My developerWorks terms and conditions

Table of contents

• Next-generation development environment for COBOL and PL/I
• Support for CICS V4.1 and IMS V11
• SOA, Web services, and RESTful services enhancements
• Integrated application life cycle enhancements
• Easier installation, improved performance and usability
• Resources
• About the author
• Comments

Local resources

• IBM Innovation Center - Austin, TX
• IBM Innovation Center - Chicago, IL
• IBM Innovation Center - Dallas, TX
• IBM Innovation Center - San Mateo, CA
• IBM Innovation Center - Waltham, MA
• Technical Briefings in North America

My developerWorks community

Dig deeper into Rational on developerWorks

Rate a product. Write a review.

Write a review for Rational products today!

Special offers