CICS Transaction Server 6.3 Is Here — Redefining What’s Possible on IBM Z
It’s official — CICS Transaction Server 6.3 has been out in the world since September 5th, and the feedback has been fantastic!
This release is a major leap forward, packed with innovative features that make it easier than ever to develop, operate, and observe CICS applications. Whether you’re a developer, system programmer, or site reliability engineer, CICS TS 6.3 is built to help you work smarter, faster, and with greater visibility than ever before.
Thank You to Our Community
We couldn’t have reached this milestone without you.
A huge thank-you to everyone who played a part in shaping CICS TS 6.3 - from our CICS Design Partnership participants who provided invaluable feedback, to those who joined prototype playbacks, and all the experts who engaged in insightful discussions at conferences.
And of course, a massive shoutout to the CICS TS development team for their dedication, innovation, and collaboration. Your expertise truly shines through in this release!
What’s New in CICS TS 6.3
CICS TS 6.3 introduces a range of updates focused on observability, configuration simplification, developer productivity, AI readiness, and security. Let’s take a closer look at some of the highlights:
CICS 6.3 introduces native OpenTelemetry support for distributed tracing, enabling a unified view of your hybrid-cloud applications - including CICS tasks.
Now, site reliability engineers can identify and resolve issues faster, with all IBM Z application components visualized directly in OpenTelemetry dashboards. It’s a big win for visibility and performance insight.
You can now define your CICS region setup in a single YAML file that includes contextual help and auto-completion.
A new command-line tool on z/OS uses this file to quickly provision and deprovision CICS regions, making setup and management far more efficient.
(And yes, it’s available in the CICS TS Open Beta for in-service releases too!)
With the IBM Z Open Editor and Zowe extensions, you now get syntax highlighting, EXEC CICS auto-completion, and an in-place resource inspector — right where you work.
The result? A modern, seamless, and productivity-boosting development experience for COBOL and PL/I applications.
CICS TS 6.3 now supports Java 21, Jakarta EE 10, MicroProfile 6.1, and Spring Boot 3, giving you access to the latest frameworks and performance optimizations.
Your Java workloads can now interact securely and efficiently with CICS programs and data in VSAM, Db2, IMS, and MQ — all with the power and stability of IBM Z.
AI-Ready Capabilities CICS 6.3 takes a big step toward AI integration
The new Model Context Protocol (MCP) server lets AI orchestrators and chatbots connect directly with live CICS data — enabling them to answer operational questions about CICS regions and resources automatically.
Security Enhancements Security teams can now dig deeper and act faster.
CICS Explorer introduces new views to help you analyze and improve RACF security definitions for CICS users and resources.
Plus, AT-TLS protection now covers even more CICS-managed connections, ensuring stronger encryption and a consistent approach to securing credentials and ciphers.
Learn More and Explore
Want to see these features in action?
Check out What’s New in CICS TS 6.3 for the full release overview.
You can also catch up on the CICS TS 6.3 Deep-Dive Webinars in the MediaCenter CICS TS Playlist — where our engineers walk through each new feature in detail.
Upgrade and Experience the Difference
If you haven’t upgraded yet, now’s the time to explore CICS TS 6.3 and experience the next evolution of transaction processing on IBM Z.
Smarter observability. Simplified management. Modern development.
This release is built to power your hybrid cloud journey — and we can’t wait to see what you build with it.