With the availability of the PTF for APAR PH59534, you can now activate function level V13R1M505 in Db2 13 for z/OS. Function level 505 introduces the following new features and capabilities in Db2 13.
- A new token-based authentication that uses the RACF® Identity Token (IDT) capability. You can enable Db2 to send and receive an authentication token in a connection request without any other credentials. For more information, see Enabling Db2 for token authentication.
APAR PH55599 delivered the functional code for enabling Db2 for token authentication. This feature also requires the following APARs for IDT2 support: RACF APAR OA63462 and SAF APAR OA63463.
- Temporal support for security-related catalog tables, with the ability to access information about the authorizations and privileges that were in place for Db2 objects and users at a point in time in the past. This information can be a useful source of evidence for security auditing purposes.
The temporal support is implemented through history tables that are associated with their corresponding catalog tables. For more information, see Temporal support for security-related catalog tables.
APAR PH59531 delivered the functional code for temporal support for security-related catalog tables.
- A new trace destination, ZAI, that is used by some Db2ZAI Distributed Connection Control (DCC) related traces. DCC traces are processed for connection and thread related statistics and bypass writing to SMF unless the trace was started with DEST(SMF). APAR PH56369 delivered the functional code for the trace destination for Db2ZAI.
- A new built-in scalar function called INTERPRET, which takes an expression that returns a built-in binary or character FOR BIT data string as its first operand and interprets it as the specified data type. The INTEPRET function is especially useful for converting hexadecimal values that identify data rows in many Db2 error messages into BIGINT values that can be used as input to the RID built-in function. For more information, see INTERPRET function.
APAR PH59595 delivered the functional code for the INTERPRET function.
Also, following the pattern that we first introduced FL 504, activation of FL 505 now also verifies that various new-function APARs for enhancements not controlled by function-level activation are applied in your Db2 13 environment. For that list, see the rightmost column of the table in New-function APARs for Db2 13.
For more about about function level 505 and how to activate it in your Db2 13 for z/OS environment, see Function level 505 (APAR PH59534 - April 2024).
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