Creating product information files for the Software Management task

A product information file is a flat file, such as a text file, that contains information about one or more products. This information includes, for example, the product announce date, general availability date, and end of service date. You can create your own product information files or obtain them from a provider, such as IBM®, another vendor, or a third party.

z/OSMF displays data from product information files in several views in the Software Management task. For example, this information is displayed in the Products page, the Products, Features, and FMIDs page, and the End of Service report.

Syntax for product information files

To be processed by z/OSMF, product information files must be formatted as JSON data and have the following syntax:

{ 
  "Version": "date-modified",
  "Products":
  [
    {
      "prodName": "product-name",
      "prodId": "product-identifier",
      "prodVRM": "version-release-modification",
      "GAAnnounceDate": "date-announced",
      "GADate": "general-availability-date",
      "URL": "URL",
      "EOSDate": "end-of-service-date",
      "country": "country" 
    }
  ]
}

where,

date-modified: Date the file was created or last updated. The date must have the format YYYY-MM-DD. The date is required.
product-name: Name of the product. The name is optional, and is not used by z/OSMF. To omit the product name, exclude the field, type null as the value, or set the value equal to an empty string.
product-identifier: Identifier of the product. The product ID is required.
version-release-modification: Version, release, and modification level of the product. The value has the format VV.RR.MM, where VV is the two-digit version, RR is the two-digit release, and MM is the two-digit modification level. The version, release, and modification level are required.
date-announced: Date the vendor publicly announced the details of the product. The date must have the format YYYY-MM-DD. The date is optional. To omit the date, exclude the field or type null as the value.
general-availability-date: Date that a version or release of the product is available to all users. The date must have the format YYYY-MM-DD. The date is optional. To omit the date, exclude the field or type null as the value.
URL: URL that links to additional information about the product. This information can include, for example, product life cycle dates, product highlights, planning information, and technical descriptions. The URL is optional. To omit the URL, exclude the field, type null as the value, or set the value equal to an empty string.
end-of-service-date: Last date on which the vendor will deliver standard support services for a given version or release of the product. This date is the general end of service date. It does not account for lifecycle extensions. The date must have the format YYYY-MM-DD. The date is optional. To omit the date, exclude the field or type null as the value.
country: Country for which the end of service date is applicable. The country is optional. To omit the country, exclude the field, type null as the value, or set the value equal to an empty string.

The information for each product must be contained within separate braces ({ }) inside the brackets ([ ]), and each set of braces must be comma separated. For a sample file that contains the information for two products, see Figure 1.

Sample product information file

Figure 1. Sample product information file for the Software Management task

{ 
  "Version": "2011-06-30",
  "Products":
  [
    {
      "prodName": "z/OS",
      "prodId": "5694-A01",
      "prodVRM": "01.10.00",
      "GAAnnounceDate": "2008-08-05",
      "GADate": "2008-09-26",
      "URL": "http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/os/zos/",
      "EOSDate": "2011-09-30",
      "country": "US" 
    },
    { 
      "prodName": "z/OS",
      "prodId": "5694-A01",
      "prodVRM": "01.13.00",
      "GAAnnounceDate": "2011-07-12",
      "GADate": null,
      "URL": "",
      "country": "US" 
    }
  ]
}

Working with the IBM product information file

The product information file that IBM supplies for System z® software is located at the following URL: http://public.dhe.ibm.com/services/zosmf/JSONs/IBMProductEOS.txt .

To load the contents of the file into z/OSMF, do one of the following:

Load directly from the URL.
Manually download the file at the URL to your local workstation.
Manually download the file at the URL to a z/OS® data set or UNIX file that the primary z/OSMF host system can access.

When transferring the file from a workstation to a z/OS data set or UNIX file, transfer the file in binary format. To avoid errors, do not convert the file to the EBCDIC character set.

After you store the file in your desired location, to retrieve its contents, complete the steps provided in the Retrieving product information from product information files topic in the z/OSMF online help.