What's New in SA z/OS® 4.4.0 (GA-level)

This topic lists all the enhancements that are made to IBM Z System Automation 4.4.0 when it was generally available (GA) on October 24, 2025 .

  • Inbound System Automation Operations API enhancements

    The Inbound SA Operations API is enhanced to support Application Groups (APG). It sends event notifications when resource actions such as start and stop are completed. It also provides additional functions for managing APGs, including notifications through Server-Sent Events (SSE) for actions like start, stop, and policy activation. Information endpoints are available for detailed status updates.

  • Inbound System Automation Customization API enhancements

    The Inbound System Automation Customization API uses the SA Policy Service Provider to manage Timer (TMR) entries within an SA policy. It also creates and retrieves policy reports in JSON format to support integration and analysis.

  • Addition of Outbound System Automation REST client callable module

    The Outbound SA REST client callable module is added to help ease the creation of NetView and SA REXX scripts that call any RESTful API to perform GET or POST operations on API endpoints.

  • Enhanced System Automation plug-in for Zowe CLI

    Updated and enhanced versions of the SA plug-in for Zowe CLI use the capabilities and functions that are provided by the SA Operations API to improve integration and automation through the plug-in.

  • Sample policy added for IBM Z Container Support (zOSCP)

    System Automation provides a sample policy for IBM Z Container Support (zOSCP), also known as Kubernetes that automates infrastructure that runs pods with containerized workloads.

  • Support for 64-bit Java environments and Java version 21

    System Automation supports 64-bit Java environments. Most SA Java components support Java version 21, except for the SA E2E Automation Adapter, which requires a different Java version to communicate with the IBM Z® Automation Web Console.

  • INGREST method for REST API access

    The generic callable method INGREST enables NetView and SA REXX scripts to use any standard REST API.

  • Z Automation Web Console dashboard enhancements

    Z Automation Web Console dashboard adds hardware management views by using data from SA ProcOps and provides visibility into hardware status.

  • System Automation Policy Customization enhancements

    System Automation includes enhancements through the SA Policy Service Provider and the SA Customization API. You can create ACF fragments directly from the SA Customization Dialog. The customization REST API enables you to add, modify, and delete Timer entries in SA policies to support maintenance and migration tasks. Additionally, you can create and retrieve policy reports in JSON format.

    Agentic AI prototypes use the SA Customization API to interact with policy elements.

  • New best practice sample policies

    System Automation now includes best practice sample policies for the z/OS Container Platform (zOSCP) and the z/OS Control Plane Appliance (zCPA). These additions support streamlined policy setup and provide guidance for orchestrating containerized workloads on z/OS.

  • Support mixed case for Startup parameters

    Startup parameters can now also be entered in mixed case on application classes, which can be inherited by the downward classes or applications. This mixed case support eliminates your need to define mixed case on instance level. For more information, see APPLICATION INFO Policy Item. Also, note that the file update function does not support mixed case characters when you import Application INFO policy item. For more details of this restriction, see Supported Policies.

  • OPER change in INGEXEC

    OA66074 I - SA410 - INGEXEC honors automated function in OPER= parameter. See INGEXEC.

  • Validated boot support to ACTIVATE and LOAD commands

    The ACTIVATE and LOAD commands now support validated boot through three optional parameters: LDIPL, SECURE, and TYPE. These parameters enable secure and auditable Initial Program Load (IPL) operations when used with LOAD_STD in ACTIVATE or IPLADDR in LOAD. See ACTIVATE and LOAD.

  • Processor Operations support for Hardware Console Availability Controls

    Starting with the availability of the IBM z16® mainframe models, Hardware Console Availability Controls (HWCAC) are introduced to inform about an upcoming outage of the Hardware Console as well as the end of the outage.

    Processor Operations can receive those events and provides out-of-the-box automation and integration with user automation through an updated add-on policy.

  • Discontinuation of Processor Operations Service Machine (PSM)

    Starting with this release, the Processor Operations Service Machine (PSM) and all associated commands are discontinued and no longer supported in Z System Automation.

System Automation Operations REST API V1.1

A new version V1.1 of the System Automation Operations REST API is available as part of the Z System Automation 4.3 release (For 4.2 release, the API V1.1 is delivered through APAR OA61704). Compared with the previous version V1.0, additional endpoints are added to the API that now allows you to get details of requests and delete them, and work with automation agents and manager including activating or refreshing the automation policy.

The current version of the System Automation Operations REST API has been tested and certified for the Zowe™ API Mediation Layer V1 LTS (Long Time Support) Version. For more information about the "Zowe Conformance Program", see Zowe Conformance Program - Open Mainframe Project™.

IBM Z System Automation Plug-in for Zowe CLI

A plug-in for Zowe CLI is introduced in Z System Automation 4.3, which you can use to interact with Z System Automation from your preferred command line on Microsoft™ Windows™, Linux®, or Apple® Macintosh® operating systems. This "System Automation Plug-in for Zowe" allows you to contact your SAPlex through the "System Automation Operations REST API", for example, for the following services:

  • List and manage (start or stop, suspend or resume) defined resources.
  • List, create, or delete dynamic resources.
  • List, create, or delete requests.
  • Refresh automation policies.
  • Work with automation agents and automation managers.

In order to use this plug-in with your System Automation systems, you have to configure and run the optional component "System Automation Operations REST Server" that provides the Operations REST API. The plug-in still works with the older API version V1.0. However, many commands require the latest version V1.1, which is part of Z System Automation 4.3 release.

The current version for the System Automation Plug-in for Zowe has been tested and certified for the Zowe CLI V1 LTS (Long Time Support) Version. For more information about the "Zowe Conformance Program", see Zowe Conformance Program - Open Mainframe Project.

A System Automation Plug-in for Zowe has been made available already for System Automation 4.2 in 2021 as technical preview service on npmjs.com (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@ibm/system-automation-for-zowe-cli). Since this release, a full supported version of this plug-in is part of the product and shipped as a package in the zFS file system. You can transfer it from there to any supported client system (Windows, Linux, Mac) that has the Zowe CLI installed and contact the System Automation Operations REST API of your System Automation systems. For more information, see Using the System Automation Plug-in for Zowe CLI to Operate System Automation.

Processor Operations (ProcOps) Enhancements

  • New HOLD mode of ISQET32 sessions

    You can now put an ISQET32 session in the new HOLD mode that keeps the session alive, as an alternative to the existing SUSPENDED mode that closes an active session. You can use this new HOLD mode to temporarily halt any hardware SA-BCPii communication and automation to IBM Z processors, for example, for a planned Support Element outage. In this mode, commands cannot be sent to the hardware, nor will events from the hardware be routed to operators or autotasks for processing. For more information about the HOLD mode and how to hold and resume a session, see Using the ProcOps HOLD Session Mode in the User Guide manual.

  • System Recovery Boost support

    System Recovery Boost (SRB) indicators are added to the ProcOps data model, API, and UIs. In addition to the ISQCCMD GETIBOOST STATUS and EVALUATE options, the ISQVARS target attention (TATTN) keyword new value "BOOST" now informs automation applications and operators when ProcOps monitoring detects system running in LPARs with BOOST mode on. For more information about how System Recovery Support is supported by Z System Automation, see IBM Z System Recovery Boost in the User Guide manual.

System Automation Info Broker

To forward SDF messages into Service Management Unite (SMU) Automation, where the operators can easily monitor SDF messages, delete captured messages, or reply to WTOR messages in the modern UI, a new optional component called System Automation Info Broker is introduced in System Automation 4.3. The main idea of the System Automation Info Broker component is to provide an infrastructure that can publish System Automation event messages to a central repository, that is an Apache Kafka system, where the event messages can be consumed by different consumers, for example, some modern display facilities. The first step of this component is to forward SDF messages to SMU via Apache Kafka. The forwarded SDF messages are placed as JSON document into the Kafka topic, where it can be consumed by SMU and displayed on the SMU "SDF Messages Overview" dashboard. For the use case in SMU, see the new features added to SMU.

Except for SDF messages, you can also forward any user-defined messages via the System Automation Info Broker component by using the new command INGIBRKR.

Note that a running "Apache Kafka" server is a prerequisite for this feature and is not delivered with Z System Automation. For more information about how to configure this component, see Configure System Automation Info Broker.

Service Management Unite Automation

The following major changes are made to Service Management Unite Automation V1.1.9:

  • New dashboard - SDF Messages Overview

    With the new dashboard for SDF messages, you can easily view and operate all captured messages and Write to Operator with Reply (WTOR) messages in your environment on a single dashboard. Service Management Unite leverages the new System Automation Info Broker, included in IBM Z System Automation 4.3, which streams SDF messages to Service Management Unite via Apache Kafka for near real-time dashboard updates. You can monitor the priority of the messages at a glance and delete the captured messages or reply to the WTOR messages directly from the dashboard.

  • New dashboard - Manage Dynamic Resources

    The new dashboard for dynamic resources management allows you to dynamically create applications that are automated by Z System Automation based on pre-defined templates. You can view the dynamic resources and the available templates. In addition, you can easily create dynamic resources through a guided workflow and resume dynamic resources.

  • Miscellaneous enhancements and fixes
    • The Request Start function is enhanced. You can now specify the start type when you send a request to start automation resources. Valid start types are NORM (default) and any other types that are defined in the policy database.
    • The status of the System Automation agent is mapped to a richer set of status icons so you can easily distinguish important status information. For more information, see How to: Customize the widget to show the SA agent status.
    • The IBM Service Management Unite console URL is customized and enhanced when the port number of the console is set to 443.

Miscellaneous Capabilities

  • IBM Z Workload Scheduler (ZWS) Automation

    To save operations time, System Automation infrastructure is enhanced to provide the ability of an immediate result check right after the termination of an asynchronous command that is routed from ZWS to System Automation. The checking routine is invoked immediately after the command processing finished, without waiting until the max wait time is reached. The maximum wait time value (within ZWS) should be specified with a prefixed 'I' to indicate immediate checking. For more information, see User-supplied Completion Checking Routine.

  • Job Log Monitoring

    Job Log Monitoring capability is enhanced to monitor temporary data sets and automate applications based on the contents of such data sets. For more information, see Job Log Monitoring Overview and Access to JES Spool Output Data Sets.

  • Force prepare move for SERVER application groups

    To improve high availability when recycling SERVER application groups, you can now force the prepare move function for SERVER APGs during rolling recycle only. To use this feature, set the new option Force prepare move on rolling recycle to YES on the group's Application Group Information policy. With this setting, a member will not be stopped until the started replacement is available during rolling recycle and hence improves the group's high availability.

  • Transition of LPAR management into ProcOps component

    Starting from Z System Automation 4.3, the LPAR management function is transited to the ProcOps component. The previous LPAR management function uses the SA-BCPii INTERNAL protocol and only a subset of the ProcOps common commands are usable. After this transition, the LPAR management capabilities retain the same, just using a different hybrid SNMP protocol, and the full set of ProcOps common commands are usable. For more information about the migration steps, see Migrating from LPAR Management to ProcOps.

  • Hardware validation function disabled by default

    The default setting of the advanced automation CGlobal variable AOF_AAO_HW_VALIDATION is changed from YES to NO.