We are excited to share with you that IBM Fault Analyzer for z/OS, IBM File Manager for z/OS, and IBM Application Performance Analyzer for z/OS all released a new version on March 15th! This is an important milestone for these products, also known as the Problem Determination Tools (PD Tools) that are key to your organizations’ DevOps application development.
IBM Fault Analyzer for z/OS (FA)
FA helps developers analyse and fix system and application failures for CICS, WebSphere Application Server for z/OS, WebSphere MQ, IMS and DB2 environments.
When an application ends abnormally, Fault Analyzer is automatically engaged, gathering real-time information about the event and its environment at the time of failure. This helps the development team to identify the cause, analyse what went wrong and resolve the problem in a more timely and efficient manner to avoid costly interruptions that could jeopardize application schedules and outcomes.
FA 15.1.4 contains minor clarifications and corrections, as well as the following significant changes relative to the previous edition:
- A new section "Special consideration for 2GB-4GB addresses" has been added.
- A new options field PREVEXIT has been added to the IDIOPTLM configuration-options module.
- Support for the use of a new DDname IDISYSLB with the DSECT command and the IDIPDSCU utility has been added.
- The section Migrating from V14.1 to V15.1 has been updated to include information about the IDIOPT1 and IDIOPT2 SMP/E USERMODs
IBM File Manager for z/OS (FM)
FM provides flexible, user-friendly tools for enhanced file processing when working with z/OS data sets, DB2, CICS, IMS or WebSphere MQ data. File Manager extends the standard ISPF browse, edit, copy, batch, and print utilities to help developers work with structured data more efficiently.
FM 15.1.4 rolls up a number of miscellaneous fixes. It also includes the following new support:
- Enhancements to the enhanced ISPF processing:
- L: produces an ISPF data set list.
- U: produces a UNIX directory list.
- Extended member lists are now produced for view or edit functions when a partitioned data set with a generic or blank member name is being processed.
- A view or edit of a DD statement containing concatenated partitioned data sets now supports an extended member list for all corresponding cataloged data sets.
- Variables defined in an INCLUDE member are now processed and resolved when processing data set names.
- Option 4, Dslist, has been extended to support the display of an ISPF data set list when positioned on a DD statement, and a UNIX directory list when positioned on a UNIX path or file name.
- Two new prefix commands are available for the enhanced reference list display.
- Pressing the function key with 4 in the command line when viewing or editing produces a data set list for up to 30 data set names referenced in the session.
- Pressing the function key with 4U in the command line when viewing or editing produces a UNIX directory list for up to 30 paths or file names referenced in the session.
- A new keyword option, KSDSUPD, has been added to the Data Set Copy (DSC) function to manage matching record keys. When record keys from the source data set match record keys in the destination data set, you can choose to either overlay them in the destination data set or, you can leave them unchanged and return a message indicating that there is a duplicate key.
- The IMS Data Definition utility (DFS3ID00) is the default and recommended method for generating dynamic PSBs when IMS manages ACBs. The other method uses the IMS Catalog Populate utility (DFS3PU00), but this method has now been deprecated and is no longer the default. As a result, the default value for the USEDDL parameter on the FMN0POPI macro statement is now Y.
IBM Application Performance Analyzer for z/OS (APA)
APA identifies z/OS application performance and response time problems and assists in reducing resource consumption. It can be customized to provide a performance view of an application and the statements responsible for performance degradation.
APA 15.1.4 contains minor evolutions and corrections.
Building business-critical applications, like the ones run on a mainframe is not an easy task. It needs trust in the tools and real assistance by them.
This is the reason why we present those Problem Determination Tools; to make you feel confident in their use, bringing stability and predictability to DevOps to help your company in its digital transformation journey.
For more information about those products, please visit the IBM Ideas Portal to submit enhancement ideas. Detailed service information can be found at our support pages here:
User guides may be found here:
Make sure to join the ‘Development and Pipeline’ community, as well as all the others in the IBM Z DevSecOps family, to keep up to date with all the new enhancements delivered on a quarterly basis!