What's new in V2.2

CICS TS for z/VSE 2.2 provides CICS Explorer monitor and update capability, together with channel and container support.

New in Version 2.2

  • Enhancements to the CICS Explorer to more easily manage CICS resources:
    • Define new CICS resources and modify or delete existing resources.
    • Monitor, control, and update dynamic storage areas and global temporary storage queue statistics.
    • Support "definitions" views for selected CICS resources.
  • OpenSSL for CICS Web Support gives more flexibility and allow to take advantage of the openSSL security.
  • An upgrade of CICS Web Support (CWS) to HTTP 1.1:
    • CWS is upgraded to comply with HTTP 1.1, supporting the latest web browsers and applications. New function is added to improve performance and security, such as persistent connections which send keep alive headers to leave the connection open,
    • pipelining - sending of multiple requests without waiting for a response before sending the next request,
    • chunking - The body of a message is transferred as a series of chunks, each with its own size indicator and data.
  • Enhancements to the CICS API to provide:
    • CICS TS for z/VSE 2.2 will further enhance Channels and Containers and provide support for
    • UTF-8 and UTF-16, for use in data conversion, when using the channels and containers API.
    • APPEND parameter for PUT CONTAINER, to append specified data to existing container data.
    • BYTEOFFSET parameter for GET CONTAINER, to retrieve data at a specified offset in a container.
    • date and time stamp formats that are in general use across the internet.
    • Language Environment (LE) MAIN for Assembler applications. A new translator option (LEASM) will be provided, which causes LE functions to be used and set up the program's environment.
    • relative addressing instructions in Assembler programs (without base register)

The CICS Web Support (CWS) and z/VSE web services (SOAP) provide direct access to CICS applications. SOAP can exploit Channels & Containers, in addition to CICS COMMAREA.

z/VSE 6.2 provides a new z/VSE Representational State Transfer (REST) engine with JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) support to access CICS transactions.

CICS TS for z/VSE 2.2 is only supported on z/VSE 6.2. CICS TS for z/VSE 2.1 is supported on z/VSE 6.1, but not on z/VSE 6.2 or Version 5. CICS TS for VSE/ESA 1.1.1 is supported on z/VSE Version 5, but not on z/VSE Version 6.

Documentation for IBM CICS Transaction Server for z/VSE 2.2 is provided as downloadable PDF manuals. Please use the CICS TS for VSE/ESA 1.1.1 documentation. That documentation did not change, except the CICS TS for z/VSE 2.2 Enhancements Guide. All new enhancements such as the CICS Explorer, channel and container APIs are described there as well as migration information.

CICS TS for z/VSE 2.2 and z/VSE 6.2 have a common Program Directory and Release Guide.