CICS continuous delivery features

CICS® continuous delivery offers you opportunities to use new functions, capabilities, and technologies by applying service rather than upgrading. This section summarizes availability of continuous delivery features by supported releases of CICS TS.

Maintenance to WebSphere® Application Server Liberty is delivered through fix packs periodically. For your convenience, this section also lists service APARs that CICS has released to bring its embedded Liberty JVM server to the latest WebSphere Application Server Liberty fix pack level.

Use the following tables to plan for additions of function to your CICS environment. A brief introduction is included for some features.

Note: Features are listed in chronological order, with the most recent additions at the bottom.
Feature listings  

Learn more about the features

To learn more about any of the continuous delivery features, see What's New for your CICS release, or click the link provided with the APAR to view the APAR details in the IBM Support Portal.

Features for Java, OSGi, and Liberty

CICS Liberty features

Table 1 shows by release additions of CICS Liberty features through continuous delivery. Some Liberty features are made available to in-service CICS releases with CICS APARs that bring CICS-embedded Liberty JVM server to the latest WebSphere Application Server Liberty fix pack level.

Table 1. Continuous delivery for Liberty features, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
CICS Liberty feature 5.5 5.6 6.1

adminCenter-1.0

 PH08321 BASE BASE

beanValidation-2.0

cdi-2.0

javaee-8.0

javaMail-1.6

jaxrs-2.1

jsf-2.3

jsonb-1.0

jsonp-1.1

servlet-4.0

webProfile-8.0

 PH15017 BASE BASE

microProfile-1.3

microProfile-1.4

microProfile-2.0

microProfile-2.1

microProfile-2.2

microProfile-3.0

microProfile-3.2

microProfile-4.0

microProfile-4.1

   BASE BASE

To view the complete list of CICS Liberty features that are supported by your CICS release, follow these links:

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Other features
Table 2. Other continuous delivery features for Java, OSGi, and Liberty, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
Feature 5.5 5.6 6.1
New JVM server profile option com.ibm.cics.jvmserver.trace.specification
Use this option to filter package and class trace from the JVM server.
 PH11496 BASE BASE
Support for EXEC CICS LINK to a Spring Boot application running in a Liberty JVM server
You can add the @CICSProgram annotation to a method on a Spring bean. When the application is started in Liberty, a CICS program definition is dynamically created. Then, the Spring Boot application can be invoked by any CICS program through an EXEC CICS LINK call.
 PH14856 BASE BASE
Support for Java™ EE 8 Full Platform in integrated-mode Liberty in CICS
By using the embedded version of IBM® WebSphere® Liberty (Liberty), CICS TS supports applications that are written to the Java Enterprise Edition (EE) 8 Full Platform specification in integrated mode. Java EE 8 includes many new and enhanced APIs, such as JSON processing, RESTful web services, authentication by using custom identity stores, and JavaMail.
 PH15017 BASE BASE
Support for Jakarta EE 8 Platform
The Jakarta EE 8 full platform technologies and specifications are an evolution of Java EE 8, allowing developers and applications to easily transition from Java EE to Jakarta EE.
 - BASE BASE
<applicationManager autoExpand="true"/> is applied as a default Liberty configuration setting but is not visible in server.xml.
This setting causes application file archives to be automatically expanded into the ${server.config.dir}/apps directory on first use. This avoids expansion of file archives into the Liberty work area on server startup, reducing zFS file I/O and making more efficient use of the Java shared class cache. If you wish to override this setting and switch it off, then you should place the XML element: <applicationManager autoExpand="false"/> in your server.xml file.
 PH28793 PH28793 REMOVED

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Fixes for WebSphere Application Server Liberty

Table 3 shows all the CICS APARs that provide support for Liberty fix packs. Only some of these fix packs enable new Liberty features; the others are simply ongoing maintenance. If the fix pack enables new Liberty features in CICS, these features are listed in Table 1.

Complete fixes for WebSphere Application Server Liberty: See IBM Support: Recommended updates for WebSphere Application Server for a complete listing of all the fixes for Liberty with the latest fixes at the top.
Table 3. Fixes for WebSphere Application Server Liberty, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
IBM WebSphere Liberty fix pack version 5.5 5.6 6.1
18.0.0.3 PH05401 BASE BASE
18.0.0.4 PH07871 BASE BASE
19.0.0.3 PH09600 BASE BASE
19.0.0.6 PH13560 BASE BASE
19.0.0.9 PH16415 BASE BASE
19.0.0.12 PH19704 BASE BASE
20.0.0.3 PH21613 BASE BASE
20.0.0.6 PH25960 PH25960 BASE
20.0.0.9 PH28793 PH28793 BASE
20.0.0.12 PH31589 PH31589 BASE
21.0.0.3 PH33137 PH33137 BASE
21.0.0.6 PH37946 PH37946 BASE
21.0.0.9 PH39936 PH39936 BASE
21.0.0.12 PH42501 PH42501 BASE
22.0.0.3 PH44531 PH44531 BASE
22.0.0.6 PH46518 PH46518 PH46518
22.0.0.9 PH49182 PH49182 PH49182

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Features for CICS web services

Table 4. Continuous delivery features for CICS web services, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
Feature 5.5 5.6 6.1
Support for HTTP OPTIONS handler program PH16992 BASE BASE
Enabling multiple client URIMAPs that point to the same endpoint PH44683 PH44683 BASE

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Features for CICS policies

Table 5. Continuous delivery features for CICS policies, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
Feature 5.5 5.6 6.1
System rules:
  • DBCTL connection status
  • IBM MQ connection status
  • Pipeline enable status

You must use CICS Explorer® for Aqua 3.2 (Fix Pack 5.5.0.3) or later to define these system rules.

 PH07632 BASE BASE
Ability to specify Transaction ID and User ID conditions for policy task rules PH26145 PH26145 BASE
New policy task rule type, container storage - PH29187 BASE
New policy system rule type, transaction dump threshold - PH34348 BASE
New option to set the WLMHEALTH time interval is supported by the Set z/OS WLM health open status system rule action - - PH58295

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Features for CICS security

Table 6. Continuous delivery features for CICS security, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
Feature 5.5 5.6 6.1
Ability to use defaultciphers.xml for outbound web requests
A new feature toggle com.ibm.cics.web.defaultcipherfile is provided to allow outbound web requests to use a default cipher file. See Default cipher file for outbound web requests.
 PH45703 PH38091 BASE
Key rings can be shared more easily between regions
You can share a key ring owned by one region user ID with another region by granting that other region authority to use the key ring. As a result, the KEYRING SIT parameter now accepts more formats of key ring names. See KEYRING system initialization parameter.
 PH49253 PH49253 PH49261

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All other continuous delivery features

Table 7. All other continuous delivery features, by release of CICS Transaction Server for z/OS
Feature 5.5 5.6 6.1
REXX for CICS enhancements
Support for REXX for CICS internal tracing, a new online help utility, and REXX for CICS documentation updates in the CICS TS 5.1 and later product documentation.
 OA56111, OA56806, and OA56807. BASE BASE
New replication log record
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.
 PH09381 BASE BASE
New feature toggle com.ibm.cics.rls.delete.ridfld to help you with RLS migration
When this feature is enabled, you can issue a DELETE command with the RIDFLD option for a single record without causing AFCG abends.
 PH07596 BASE BASE
Support for IBM SDK for Node.js - z/OS®, V12.0 PH18618 BASE BASE
SNI now supported in CICS TS communications with an HTTP server over TLS connections

CICS TS now supports the use of the Server Name Indication (SNI) extension as defined in Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 6066. With this enhancement, CICS TS, when acting as an HTTP client, can use a TLS connection to a virtual host where the server supports multiple virtual hosts using a single IP address.

No configuration change is required in CICS TS. CICS TS supports SNI if it is supported by the HTTP server.

 PH20063 BASE BASE
CICS capability of exploiting IBM z/OS Workload Interaction Correlator
Hardware and system requirements: IBM z/OS Workload Interaction Correlator requires IBM z14® or z15® hardware and is provided in PTFs for APAR OA57165 for z/OS in V2R3 and V2R4.
 PH16392 BASE BASE
CICS-MQ trigger monitor and CICS-MQ bridge improvements

CKTI now handles abends produced when starting user transactions. If an abend occurs when the CKTI transaction attempts to start the user transaction, rather than terminating, CKTI will now send the trigger message to the dead-letter queue, and trigger monitor processing continues.

CKTI and CKBR now handle temporary errors that occur when issuing MQOPEN and MQGET requests. Rather than terminating, CKTI and CKBR will retry every minute for up to an hour. If the error is not resolved after an hour, the monitor transactions will then terminate.

 PH22136 BASE BASE
Enhanced capability for monitoring shared pool TS queue usage
This enhancement makes it easier for you to monitor capacity usage change for shared pool TS queues. When the percentage of entries or elements in use in a pool structure reaches a specified threshold, DFHXQ0422 or DFHXQ0423 is issued. When the percentage of entries or elements in use drops below a threshold, DFHXQ0420 or DFHXQ0421 is issued.
 - PH28145 BASE
Capability for monitoring auxiliary temporary storage usage
You are now alerted when auxiliary temporary storage data set usage is approaching a high percentage of its capacity so that you have time to free up storage before the auxiliary temporary storage becomes full.

CICS issues message DFHTS1316 when 75% or more of the maximum auxiliary temporary storage is in use, and message DFHTS1317 when storage usage falls below 70% of the maximum auxiliary temporary storage.

 - PH28145 BASE
Enhanced adapter tracking for CICS Db2® applications
The CICS Db2 attachment facility is enhanced to pass adapter data to Db2. If a CICS task that is accessing Db2 has adapter data in the CICS origin data, the adapter ID is passed as appl-longname and the adapter data is passed as an accounting-string. Db2 writes the data in its SMF accounting records and the data is also available online through the Db2 special registers CURRENT CLIENT_APPLNAME and CURRENT CLIENT_ACCTNG. This capability requires Db2 12 with APAR PH31447 or higher.
 PH30252 PH30252 BASE
Overriding resource definitions
You can provide a consistent approach to the creation of certain resources by applying environment-specific overrides through a resource overrides file. You can override the resource definition for any supported resource type that can be defined by using resource definition online (RDO). You specify the required overrides in a resource overrides file that is loaded during CICS startup. The overrides are applied when CICS resources are installed.

This support is intended for infrequent system-wide changes to tailor the resources for a specific CICS environment.

 - PH30590 BASE
Support for passing XID to Db2 PH39766 PH39766 PH47996

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