IMS compliance control blocks support

In IMS 15, the IMS compliance control blocks support provides access to compliance-related data in the Operation Manager and IMS Connect that can be collected for compliance audit purposes.

With the release of IBM® z16™, a new product, IBM Z® Security and Compliance Center (zSCC) is launched to help take the complexity out of the compliance workflow and the ambiguity out of audits. It provides a dashboard that presents security compliance audit data obtained through automated fact collection about an IBM Z system.

In IMS, the Operation Manager (OM) and IMS Connect address spaces have configuration parameter settings that can be used for compliance audits. These settings are typically held in non-source-shipped control blocks whose format and location are not available to non-IMS programs.

However, with the enhancement delivered by APAR PH42600 in IMS 15, OM and IMS address spaces copy and consolidate internal compliance audit settings into new compliance data control blocks that are source-shipped. These address spaces then provide the address of the control blocks by using a z/OS®® name and token pair with the name BPECOMPLIANCEDAT.

Any product that performs security audit compliance checks can use these new control blocks to access compliance audit data that is previously inaccessible from OM and IMS Connect. One such product is IBM Security zSecure Suite 2.5.0 with APAR OA63173 (PTF UJ08291), which captures the compliance data and makes it available for compliance tests and displays it in ISPF or in batch reports. IBM Z Security and Compliance Center then externalizes the compliance data to SMF 1154 subtype 85, 86, and 87 records and uses the SMF 1154 records to evaluate an installation's compliance state, which can be displayed on the zSCC dashboard.

For information about the new OM and IMS Connect compliance data control blocks, see IMS compliance control blocks in the System Programming APIs publication.

For more information about IBM Security zSecure Suite 2.5.0, see IBM Security zSecure Suite 2.5.0 Documentation.

For more information about IBM Z Security and Compliance Center, see IBM Z Security and Compliance Center.

Requirements

IBM Z Security and Compliance Center requires IBM z16.

Changes to troubleshooting for IMS

This enhancement introduces changes to the following message and abend code:

HWSX0909E
BPE ABEND 3400

For a list of the messages and codes that are new or changed for this enhancement, see the IMS messages and codes row in the table in Documentation changes.

For a complete list of all of the new, changed, and deleted messages, and abend codes in IMS 15, see Message and code changes in IMS 15.

Changes to commands

New codes are added to the following commands in CREATE IMSCON command:

CREATE IMSCON TYPE(DATASTORE) command
CREATE IMSCON TYPE(IMSPLEX) command

For a list of the commands that are new or changed for this enhancement see the IMS commands row in the table in Documentation changes.

Documentation changes

The following table lists the publications that contain new or changed topics for the IMS compliance control blocks support. Publications that are not impacted by this enhancement are not included in the table.

Table 1. Links to topics that have new or changed content for this enhancement
Publication	New or changed topics
Release planning	General planning information for IMS 15 Command changes in IMS 15 Changed messages and codes for IMS 15 IMS 15 enhancements IMS continuous delivery functions IMS compliance control blocks support (new) (this topic)
System programming APIs	IMS compliance control blocks (new)
IMS messages and codes	Non-DFS messages HWS messages (IMS Connect) HWSX0909E IMS component codes BPE codes 3400
IMS commands	CREATE commands CREATE IMCON commands CREATE IMSCON TYPE(DATASTORE) command CREATE IMSCON TYPE(IMSPLEX) command