IBM Z Open Automation Utilities 1.4 offers access to extended data set and volume statistics
Authors: Sebastian Torf and Amanda Stephens
This release brings powerful enhancements to help teams automate more effectively by leveraging access to more detailed statistics for their MVS assets. This helps users to gain deeper insights, and allows for additional workflows on z/OS to be modernized. Here’s what’s new:
Enhanced data set statistics
With this release, IBM Z Open Automation Utilities enhances the breadth and depth of data set statistics that are accessible through data set and member listing utilities. Users enjoy broader levels of metrics that are traditionally available to TSO or MVS users only, but that are harder to obtain in UNIX System Services. This release brings expanded support for data set statistics, including:
- Improved performance: dls and mls have been rewritten in C, which offers speed improvements in processing speed compared to the prior implementation
- Extended attributes and statistics for VSAM data sets
- Better support for alias data set indication and grouping when listing data sets
- Extended attribute support for data set members
- Ability to print ISPF member statistics
- Standardized JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) output support in the mls utility
Behind the scenes, ZOAU integrates lower-level system calls to extract data that would otherwise be buried deep in traditional interfaces. This means developers can build application or scripts that intelligently analyze data sets without ever leaving their UNIX-style workflows.
Meet the `vf` utility to gain insights into volume statistics
Need to get a quick view of DASD volume status and free space? ZOAU 1.4 introduces the vf utility, a UNIX System Services command that:
-
Lists status and space information for all active direct access storage device DASD volumes
-
Supports individual volume serial queries
-
Supports outputting data into JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) output
This functionality is also available in the ZOAU Python language kit that ships with the product.
Python 3.13 compatibility
ZOAU 1.4 is fully compatible with IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Python 3.13, which means you can:
-
Leverage Python capabilities in ZOAU through IBM Open Enterprise SDK for Python in your automation projects
-
Seamlessly integrate with Red Hat Ansible Certified Content for IBM Z
-
Accelerate business transformation and modernization by enabling powerful frameworks for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, DevOps, and automation
Improved Python data set processing capabilities
Handling mixed code pages has long been a headache in z/OS environments, but ZOAU 1.4 brings improved Python-based data set capabilities that provide:
- Improved performance. The datasets.write() and datasets.read() functions gain performance by leveraging native backend calls facilitated by the zoau_io module.
- Encoding conversions. Read and write a Python string with content provided in other encodings (including multi-byte), such as UTF-8. This allows for more cohesive data set operations.
- Processing limit. The datasets.write() and datasets.read() functions have a raised data limit of 1GB.
- Data set write safety feature. Validates that content fits into the record length before attempting a write operation. This is activated by default.
- GDG improvements. Relative addressing is supported in the datasets.write() function.
ZOAU 1.4 continues IBM’s push toward modern, developer-friendly automation on the mainframe. With deeper system insights, enhanced Python integration, and new tools for storage management, this release makes it even easier for teams to automate and modernize their z/OS environments.
Ready to automate smarter? Check out the full announcement letter here: AD25-1204
Migration and compatibility
A few important notes for those upgrading:
-
ZOAU 1.4 requires z/OS 2.5 or above
-
IBM JES3 support is deprecated on z/OS 3.1. ZOAU only supports JES3 on earlier z/OS versions
-
A new migration guide is included in the documentation to help smooth the transition from earlier ZOAU releases
Resources