Additional changes to this product

CICS® Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 5 Release 2 is extended by Service after its initial release. The capabilities that are introduced through service after the product was first released are listed. APARs that are provided as fixes to issues with existing function are not listed here.

APAR	Capability
PI51499	The basic mapping support (BMS) now supports a new user replaceable module (URM), DFHBMSX (3270 data stream validation program). This module is called to enable validation of 3270 data streams in BMS RECEIVE MAP commands.
PI52819, PI87181, and PI87695	CICS TS now provides support for IBM SDK, Java Technology Edition Version 8.
PI60388 and PI73184	CICS uses system autoinstall to install program definitions for Language Environment® as required, removing the need to maintain definitions in the CEE CSD group.
	New CICS system initialization parameter, XPTKT, which specifies whether CICS checks if a user can generate a PassTicket for the user's userid using the EXEC FEPI REQUEST PASSTICKET command.
PI67641	Mapping level 4.1 is added to the web services assistants, XML assistants, and JSON assistants. This mapping level implements improved mappings for simple arrays generated bottom-up from existing copybooks. It also adds the ability for CICS to auto-detect uninitialized trailing storage in arrays, and to omit those records from the generated XML/JSON form.
PI76965	CICS TS now supports IBM® Health Checker for z/OS to help simplify and automate the identification of potential configuration problems. CICS TS currently provides three health checker rules that define best practice for CICS TS security. If a CICS region becomes non-compliant with these security best practices, a warning message is issued so that you can take corrective actions.
PI83667	CICS TS now supports system rules in CICS policies. You can define system rules in CICS policies to monitor the state of system resources, or the overall health of a CICS system. System rules define an automated action to perform (issue a message or emit a CICS event) when something of interest happens in a CICS system. Examples are a resource state change, a threshold that is crossed, or an unusual system state or action. Policy system rules provide equivalent or enhanced capability to system events, and support for system events is deprecated. Use system rules instead. Following the introduction of system rules, policy threshold rules are renamed to policy task rules, and policy thresholds are renamed to policy conditions.
PI88500	If you use CICS Explorer® Version 5.4.0.6 or later and you use the policy definition editor to work with policy rules, you can now define items of static data to be emitted with policy events and specify a user-defined name for the event.
	New CICS system initialization parameter, KERBEROSUSER, which specifies a user ID to be associated with the Kerberos service principal. This user ID must not be a protected user ID because protected user IDs should not be used for Kerberos authentication and Kerberos authentication failures can result in user revocation. Typically, the CICS region user ID is a protected user ID, so it is recommended to specify a non-protected user ID on KERBEROSUSER for the Kerberos service principal.
PI92486	From z/OS V2.2, VSAM provides a dynamic buffer addition capability that allows for the addition of extra buffers for an LSR pool if no buffer is available for a given VSAM request. For CICS, it is preferable to retry the request rather than allow uncontrolled expansion of an LSR pool, so dynamic buffer addition is not enabled for CICS LSR pools.
PI98569	The SET TASK command has been enhanced such that CICS processing of task purge or forcepurge requests will attempt to cancel active Db2® threads used by CICS tasks that are being purged or forcepurged. If CICS detects that the task being purged or forcepurged has a thread active in Db2, it will issue a Db2 cancel thread command to cancel the request in Db2 before initiating the purging of the CICS task. This enhancement ensures that the purge does not cause problems for Db2 and that the Db2 updates are safely backed out. To cancel the Db2 thread in Db2 used by the task being purged or forcepurged, CICS uses a Db2 IFI command to issue the cancel thread command. This IFI request uses a command thread defined as part of the DB2CONN. The ID passed to Db2 needs to have the relevant authority to issue cancel thread requests; therefore, you should review the COMAUTHTYPE or COMAUTHID settings of the DB2CONN. Processing of the purge or forcepurge request will continue even if the cancel thread request is unsuccessful. Note: This capability requires APAR PI92893 on DB2® Version 11 or higher.
PH00197	New option DEFAULT-FRACTION-DIGITS added to DFHJS2LS.
	IBM z/OS Provisioning Toolkit (z/OS PT) is available for use with CICS TS. z/OS PT is a simple command-line utility that uses the IBM z/OS Management Facility (z/OSMF) REST API to rapidly provision and deprovision CICS and other z/OS development environments. System programmers can set up the environments, authorize access to individuals or teams, and set provisioning controls and limits. Then, application developers can use the command-line interface to quickly provision and deprovision environments without needing mainframe administration skills or authority. For details, see IBM z/OS Provisioning Toolkit.
OA56111, OA56806 and OA56807	Support for REXX for CICS internal tracing and a new online help utility are now provided. To use the help utility, you must load the relevant data sets, as described in Creating the help files. The REXX for CICS Transaction Server product documentation is provided in this Knowledge Centre, and in the online help. REXX for CICS Transaction Server (REXX for CICS) is the new name for REXX for CICS/ESA: REXX Development System for CICS, Version 1 Release 1 is the new name for REXX Development System for CICS/ESA, Version 1 Release 1. REXX Runtime Facility for CICS, Version 1 Release 1 is the new name for REXX Runtime Facility for CICS/ESA, Version 1 Release 1. The version, release, and product numbers are unchanged. All references in this documentation to REXX for CICS include any earlier versions of this product that are supported for use with CICS and are still called REXX for CICS/ESA.
PH09381	Replication logging in support of GDPS Continuous Availability is enhanced to log a REDO record when an application issues an UNLOCK command following a read-update command, or a series of write-massinsert commands. It allows replication products to cater more efficiently for non-RLS applications, which, in the absence of browse for update support, issue read-update requests against all records in a file, but update very few and unlock most records.
NA	Build toolchains such as Maven and Gradle are extremely popular for developing, building, and testing applications. To provide an enhanced experience for Java™ developers who are using such tools, CICS now offers JCICS and related artifacts through Maven Central. With this enhancement, you can manage Java dependencies more easily, develop the applications in an integrated development environment (IDE) of your choice, and integrate the application build smoothly with popular automation tools such as Jenkins and Travis CI. For more information, see Java support in CICS.
	Changes to the EXCI options table, DFHXCOPT: the SURROGCHK parameter of the DFHXCOPT macro has been removed. Surrogate checking is always done. If you want the option of SURROGCHK=NO, you need to request a usermod from IBM support.