Well, I just realized I’ve been slacking off. The 15^th functional APAR for ODP shipped this week. However, I just noticed that I didn’t provide a blog entry for APARs 13 and 14. This blog will try to rectify that with an overview of each of the functional enhancements over the last year.

One thing that is important to understand is these are all providing new features and functions as requested by customers and exploiting products. Please keep your systems up to date with the latest PTF updates. And, since the goal is to keep your systems up to date, we’ll provide a list of the new APARs and then  get into the new functions by Broker and Connect, with a call out to the APARs that the feature was added. 

Last note: the majority of this content was taken as is from the ODP documentation. It is an excellent publication. You don't need to wait for a blog to let you know when new functions are available. That manual is always up to date and very detailed. My compliments to its author, @Graham Hannington. 

The "new"APARs

APAR 15

Let’s start with the latest service update. June 2026: APAR OA69163 - IBM Documentation

APAR 14

 November 2025: APAR OA68403 - IBM Documentation

APAR 13

July 2025: APAR OA67938 - IBM Documentation

The new ODP Functions

Network Security enhancement (APAR 15)

These apply between Broker and Connect as well as Connect to analytic platforms

Default list of cipher suites extended

The default list of cipher suites for OMEGAMON Data Broker has been extended to include the following TLS 1.2 cipher suites at the start of the list:

1.     TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

2.     TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384

3.     TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

4.     TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

The additional cipher suites prevent a "no cipher suites in common" error where both of the following conditions are true: 

·       OMEGAMON Data Broker uses TLS 1.2 with the default cipher suite list to connect to OMEGAMON Data Connect.

·       OMEGAMON Data Connect is running in a Java™ virtual machine where TLS_RSA_*cipher suites have been disabled. For details, see Java Development Kit (JDK) issue JDK-8344767.

OMEGAMON Data Broker Enhancements

Minimum supported Zowe™ version raised from 3.0.0 to 3.2.0 APAR 14

OMEGAMON Data Broker is a plug-in for the Zowe cross-memory server. The latest plug-in requires a server from Zowe 3.2.0 or any later 3.x.x.

If you already run OMEGAMON Data Broker using the server that is supplied with OMEGAMON Data Provider, then this change involves no additional upgrade action for you. As before, use the latest supplied load modules. The existing caveat, to ensure compatibility: always use the latest supplied load modules for OMEGAMON Data Broker and Zowe cross-memory server. Don't mix old and new. For a list of the related load modules, see Configuring OMEGAMON Data Broker using the server supplied with OMEGAMON Data Provider.

However, if you run OMEGAMON Data Broker using a server in a separate Zowe installation, then you need to perform one of the following actions. Either:

• Switch to using the server that is supplied with OMEGAMON Data Provider


• Upgrade that separate Zowe installation to Zowe version 3.2.0 or any later 3.x.x

For information to help you make this choice, see Configuring OMEGAMON Data Broker.

Upgraded Zowe cross-memory server APAR 14

OMEGAMON Data Provider supplies the Zowe cross-memory server load module in TKANMODP(KAYSIS01) and the dynamic linkage base plug-in for the server in TKANMODP(KAYSISDL). These load modules have been updated to match the load modules supplied with Zowe 3.2.0.

Plug-in load module eligible for module sharing APAR 14

The OMEGAMON Data Broker plug-in load module, KAYB0001, loads into the z/OS® link pack area (LPA). This module is now eligible for the module sharing feature of Zowe, potentially conserving LPA space when a z/OS instance runs multiple instances of OMEGAMON Data Broker.

OMEGAMON Data Connect

Java Levels

Support for Java 17 in APARs 13 and 14.
Support for Java 17 or 21 in APAR 15.** 
**Please note that the APAR text gives a range of 17-21. That is not correct.  Java 18 is not supported. 

Mask values of string fields APAR 15

You can now configure OMEGAMON Data Connect to use masks to transform string field values in TCP, HTTP, Kafka, and STDOUT output.

For each field that you want to transform, you specify a mask that consists of the following properties:

• The range of character positions to be masked


• A mask character

For example, you can transform the values of sensitive fields such as user IDs from the original value AB3456 to the masked value ABxxxx.

You can specify masks in a global-level transform that applies to all outputs and in output-level transforms for each output. Output-level transforms replace any global-level transform.

Important note: The global-level transform applies to ALL outputs. Unfortunately, that includes Prometheus and Open Telemetry and it shouldn't have done so for those protocols. That will be corrected in a future APAR. If you are using the masking function for one of the supported protocols and also using Prometheus or Open Telemetry in the same OMEGAMON Data Connect instance,  then a temporary work around would be to run separate copies of OMEGAMON Data Connect with different connect.yaml files so the metrics are processed correctly. We apologize for the inconvenience of this. 

HTTP output: Splunk HEC support APAR 14

The HTTP output now supports sending data to the Splunk HTTP Event Collector (HEC) event endpoint, services/collector/event.

To send data to the Splunk HEC event endpoint, you configure an OMEGAMON Data Connect HTTP output endpoint with the following parameters:

• The Splunk HEC event endpoint URL


• The new parameter format: splunk-hec-event, to instruct OMEGAMON Data Connect to send data in the request format required by the Splunk HEC event endpoint


• Splunk-HEC-specific parameters under the new parameter splunk-hec

For example:

http:

  enabled: true

  endpoints:

    ep1:

      url: http://mysplunkserver.example.com:8088/services/collector/event

      format: splunk-hec-event

      splunk-hec: # Splunk-HEC-specific parameters

        token: 01234567-890a-bcde-f012-34567890abcd # Required

        # Optional HEC-specific parameters

        sourcetype: "odp_{product_code}_{table_name}"

        source: odp

        host: odp-host

        index: odp

      # Optional HTTP output parameters, not HEC-specific

      compression: true

      batching:

        enabled: true

        batch-size: 100

        linger: 30

Existing HTTP output configurations are unaffected. The default value of the new formatparameter (format: default) matches the previous behavior of the HTTP output.

Prometheus output: use table primary key fields as default labels APAR 14

You no longer have to specify metric labels. The labels parameter is now optional.

If you omit labels, then, by default, the Prometheus output uses the primary key fields of the table as labels. For the list of primary key fields of a table, see the primary_keyentry in the dictionary provided by the data source. For OMEGAMON monitoring agents as a data source, see OMEGAMON attribute dictionary. For other data sources, see the separate documentation for that software.

Publish to multiple Prometheus endpoints APAR 13

OMEGAMON Data Connect now offers a choice of two options for Prometheus output:

As before: one “root-level” metrics endpoint

URL path: /metrics

New: one or more “named” metrics endpoints

URL paths:

• /metrics/<endpoint_name_1>


• /metrics/<endpoint_name_2>


• …

where the endpoint names are your choice.

Kafka output: topic name can include placeholders for product code and table name APAR 15

The value of the topic configuration parameter can now include the following placeholders:

• {product_code}


• {table_name}

You can use these placeholders to specify custom per-table topic names.

For example, given the following configuration:

connect:

  output:

    kafka:

      topic: domain-a.{product_code}-{table_name}.v1

OMEGAMON Data Connect sends data from table ascpuutil of product km5 to the following topic:

domain-a.km5-ascpuutil.v1

Load configuration from multiple files and other sources APAR 13

For easier maintenance, you can now split the connect.yaml configuration file into multiple files. You can share files between instances of OMEGAMON Data Connect in locations outside of user directories. You can set parameters in environment variables, overriding values in files.

For example, you can store Prometheus output configuration parameters in a separate file, and share that file between multiple instances of OMEGAMON Data Connect. You can use environment variables to override parameters in that shared file with values specific to each instance of OMEGAMON Data Connect, avoiding the need to maintain copies of files with only minor differences.

Related changes to the sample JCL member and shell script for starting OMEGAMON Data Connect:

• In the Java™ command line in those samples, the following Spring Boot property:

--spring.config.additional-location=<odp_user_directory>/config/connect.yaml

has been replaced with:

--spring.config.name=connect

• The samples now change the current working directory to the OMEGAMON Data Connect user directory.

If you use the shell script to run OMEGAMON Data Connect without setting theODP_CONNECT_USER_DIR environment variable, then the script uses the current working directory as the user directory.

Those changes have the following effects:

• Previously, OMEGAMON Data Connect used the single configuration file config/connect.yaml in the OMEGAMON Data Connect user directory.

Now, OMEGAMON Data Connect automatically finds and loads files namedconnect.yaml, and profile-specific files named connect-<profile>.yaml, in the following locations:

1.     The OMEGAMON Data Connect user directory.

2.     The config subdirectory of the user directory.

3.     Immediate child directories of the config subdirectory.

OMEGAMON Data Connect consolidates the configuration parameters from all of the loaded configuration files into a single set of configuration parameters.

• You can now set the Spring Boot property spring.config.additional-locationto refer to one or more additional locations. For example, a directory containing configuration files that are shared by multiple instances of OMEGAMON Data Connect.


• The file config/connect.yaml is no longer required. Previously, if that file did not exist in the user directory, then OMEGAMON Data Connect failed to start. Now, OMEGAMON Data Connect fails to start if the available property sources are missing parameters that OMEGAMON Data Connect requires. The available property sources might or might not include config/connect.yaml.

Java system property java.net.preferIPv6Addresses=system APAR 13

The example Java command line to run OMEGAMON Data Connect, and the corresponding Java command lines in the supplied sample JCL member and shell script, now explicitly set the Java system property java.net.preferIPv6Addresses to system rather than implicitly using the default value false. system offers more flexibility for determining whether OMEGAMON Data Connect resolves hostnames to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.

z/OS®: sample JCL member and shell script now set _BPXK_AUTOCVT=OFF APAR 13

The sample JCL member and shell script for starting OMEGAMON Data Connect now deactivate automatic code page conversion on z/OS by setting the environment variable_BPXK_AUTOCVT=OFF.

On z/OS, automatic code page conversion can cause the Java virtual machine to misinterpret OMEGAMON Data Connect configuration files.

Fix garbled log messages on z/OS®  APAR 15

In some situations on z/OS, OMEGAMON Data Connect log messages were garbled. The garbling was caused by a mismatch between the encoding of the Java output stream System.out and the value of the Spring Boot property logging.charset.console.

To fix this issue, on z/OS, OMEGAMON Data Connect now sets logging.charset.console to match the System.out encoding.

Documentation-only changes

Prerequisites: Java 17 (was: 17 or later) APAR 13

The example Java command line to run OMEGAMON Data Connect, and the supplied sample JCL member and shell script, have been designed for Java 17. Java 18 introduces changes to the default charset and the file.encoding system property.

Spring Boot server properties APAR 13

The OMEGAMON Data Connect configuration parameters server.address and server.port, also known as Spring Boot server properties, determine where OMEGAMON Data Connect publishes Prometheus and Spring Boot Actuator endpoints.

The descriptions of these properties have been updated to highlight and explain the differences between the default address and port set by OMEGAMON Data Connect, localhost and 9070, versus the “out-of-the-box” Spring Boot defaults, 0.0.0.0 and 8080.

Filters for JSON-format outputs: using a relative file path to refer to a filter include file APAR 13

The documentaton for filter include files has been updated to clarify how OMEGAMON Data Connect resolves a relative file path for a filter include file to an absolute file path.

Summary

There have been many functional enhancements for OMEGAMON Data Provider. Beyond OMEGAMON, they apply to other exploiting products such as the Db2 tools. IBM has also made available IBM Concert for z, a new product that provides analytic support for z/OS. IBM Concert for z is better with OMEGAMON as a large number of metrics are shared via OMEGAMON Data Provider. For more information, don't hesitate to check out the master blog. 

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