Changes made in z/OSMF Version 2 Release 1, SA32-1066-02

This document contains information previously presented in IBM z/OS Management Facility Programming, SA32-1066-01, which supported IBM® z/OS® Management Facility Version 2 Release 1.

This document contains new or revised information for APAR PI20091 and the corequisite APARs.

New information

New functionality is available for z/OSMF V2R1 when you install APAR PI20091 and its corequisite APARs. For instructions on installing this service on your system, check the ++HOLD actions for the associated program temporary fix (PTF).

New Representational State Transfer (REST) services are added to the z/OS data set and file REST interface API. This programming interface allows an HTTP client application to work with data sets and UNIX files on the z/OSMF host system. The new services allow a caller to:

List the members of a z/OS partitioned data set (PDS or PDSE)
Retrieve the contents of a sequential data set, or a member of a PDS or PDSE
Retrieve the contents of a z/OS UNIX file
Write data to a sequential data set or a member of a PDS or PDSE
Write data to a z/OS UNIX file.

For more information, see z/OS data set and file REST interface.

A new REST service is added to allow a caller to obtain information about z/OSMF on the z/OS host system, such as version, release, and service level. With this information, a program can determine which z/OSMF plug-ins and core functions are available for use on a given system. For information, see z/OSMF information retrieval service.

Changed information

Enhancements are made to the z/OS jobs REST interface services API. This programming interface allows an HTTP client application to work with batch jobs on the z/OSMF host system. The enhancements are as follows:

Some REST services can be run synchronously, if coded to use the latest version of the service. The enhanced services are:
- Hold a job
- Release a job
- Change the job class
- Cancel a job
- Delete a job.
Previously, these services were limited to running asynchronously only.

Synchronous processing is supported for JES2 subsystems only. When the target subsystem is JES3, a synchronous request is ignored and the service is performed asynchronously, as in prior releases.
Related to this change, the enhanced services, if run synchronously, no longer require that your user ID be authorized to the Common Information Model (CIM) server and permitted to the JES2-JES3Jobs CIM provider.

For more information, see z/OS jobs REST interface.

The tracing property for JES activities for your programs is changed to izurestjobs.logging. Previously, this setting was izurestjobs.jessymbols.logging. For more information, see Tracing the JES related activities for your programs.

Enhancements are made to the Workflows task schema that is supplied with z/OSMF. This file provides the XML syntax and rules for creating a workflow definition. The Workflows task schema is enhanced, as follows:

A workflow step can be designed to save its output in a separate file called the output file. On completion of the step, the contents of the output file become available for use by subsequent steps in the workflow instance, or by other workflow instances.
A workflow step can be designed to be performed conditionally, based on whether a logical condition is satisfied on the z/OS system. For example, a conditional step might become eligible to be performed if a job run by another step ends with a particular return code.

For more information, see Creating workflow definitions for z/OS.

If you are creating your own plug-ins and are supplying context-sensitive documentation, the URL for linking the help content to the user interface has changed to:

https://<host>:<port>/<context-root>/helps/SSB2H8_2.1.0/<help-plugin-name>/<help-topic>

For information, see Adding links to help plug-ins.