IBM z/OS Version 2 Release 3 enhancements

IBM Canada Software Announcement A18-0175
March 6, 2018

Table of contents

At a glance

IBM's z/OS® V2.3 operating system delivers innovations designed to build the highly scalable and highly securable next-generation infrastructure needed. z/OS V2.3 delivers the performance, availability, scale, I/O support, and security to provide the infrastructure, on or off premises or provisioned as-a-service, that allows for instant reacting to business opportunities.

This z/OS V2.3 announcement describes new capabilities designed to support:

User key common requesters
OpenSSH CPACF
NFS Server: Encryption
IBM® z/OSMF
RMF™

Overview

User key common requesters updates

New diagnostics are provided to identify creators of user key common storage to simplify implementations made to mitigate the potential impact of previously announced withdrawal of support in Software Announcement A17-0390, dated July 17, 2017. The allocating, obtaining, and changing common areas of virtual storage, such that the storage is in user key (keys 8-15), will not be supported after z/OS V2.3.

A new health check, SLIP trap support, and SMF user key common usage reporting are available on z/OS V2.1 and later.
VSM Health Check ZOSMIGV2R3_NEXT_VSM_USERKEYCOMM is introduced to detect if any user key common storage is used.
New fields are introduced in the Storage and Paging section of the SMF Type 30 record to identify the users of user key common storage.
New entry point IARXLUK4 is introduced for use in a SLIP trap to detect and identify the location of user key common storage usage.

For more details, see APAR OA53355.

OpenSSH CPACF support

New support in IBM z/OS OpenSSH will directly use the Central Processor Assist for Cryptographic Functions (CPACF) instructions, if present, to implement symmetric ciphers and MAC algorithms, instead of invoking the Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility (ICSF), which also uses the CPACF instructions. Circumventing ICSF and invoking CPACF instructions directly provides improved performance. This support is made available with the PTFs for APAR OA54299 on z/OS V2.2 and z/OS V2.3. Clients that still want to meet the FIPS 140-2 specification with IBM z/OS OpenSSH will need to continue to select using ICSF.

NFS Server: Encryption support

An enhancement to the z/OS NFS Server now gives remote users access to data in encrypted sequential extended format data sets. This support complements the policy-enabled enhanced data protection for z/OS data sets introduced last year and is made available on z/OS V2.1, z/OS V2.2, and z/OS V2.3 with the PTFs for APAR OA53223.

Tape support end of life

IBM plans to discontinue delivery of z/OS platform products and service on magnetic tape on July 1, 2018. This fulfills the statement of direction in Software Announcement A17-0134, dated February 21, 2017. IBM recommends downloading products and service over the internet. However, if you have a requirement for physical media, products and service remain available on DVD.

z/OSMF enhancements

z/OS V2.3 z/OSMF is enhanced with many new functions, listed below, and z/OS V2.2 z/OSMF is refreshed with some of the previously announced functions for z/OS V2.3 z/OSMF.

The following new functions are added for z/OS V2.3:

z/OSMF server is able to determine if the version of the z/OSMF started procedure is compatible or not through APAR PI92213.
z/OS data set and file REST service is enhanced by APAR PI91339 to support:
- Directory tree walking and filtering results for list/searching
- Use of regular expressions to replace content when editing data sets
- Display all volume names for listing multi-volume data set
- Specifying "dsntype" when creating data set
APAR PI91339 also ships the PTF for z/OS V2.2.
z/OSMF is upgraded to use Liberty 17.0.0.3.
With z/OSMF, users can customize the z/OSMF Angel Name with APAR PI88651.
The z/OSMF Workflows task will support parallel-steps workflow. One or more automated steps of parallel-steps workflow can run in parallel.

The following z/OS V2.3 z/OSMF functions will also be rolled back to version 2.2 with APAR PI91120:

A new z/OS Operator Consoles task enables users to work with z/OS console-style system messages, issue system commands, filter and search messages, and so on.
The Workflows task supports performing workflow in remote sysplex.
With the new General Settings task underneath the z/OSMF Settings category, users can collect z/OSMF diagnostic data and customize z/OSMF headers, footers, and logos from the z/OSMF panel.
REST Notification services are enhanced to support specifying email addresses as recipients of notifications.
Support is added for Firefox ESR 52 and Microsoft™ Edge.

RMF enhancements

RMF support is provided to collect IBM zHyperLink related performance measurements in SMF 74 subtype 1 Device Activity records, SMF 74 subtype 5 Cache Activity records, SMF 74 subtype 8 ESS Activity records, and SMF 74 subtype 9 PCIE Activity records. These measurements are reported in the RMF Postprocessor Device, Cache, ESS, and PCIE Activity reports, respectively, in the RMF Monitor III PCIE Activity report. This support is available on z/OS V2.3 with the PTF for RMF APAR OA53411 and on z/OS V2.1 and z/OS V2.2 with the PTFs for RMF APARs OA50755 and OA53411.

Reference information

Software Announcement A17-0390, dated July 17, 2017 (z/OS V2.3)
Hardware Announcement A17-0392, dated July 17, 2017 (z14)

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