IBM Z Open Automation Utilities 1.2.5 (PH54246/UI93771) is now available!

This release delivers several new utilities, two of which provide new SMS-related capabilities. pdc allows users to get a list of active data classes available on your system to assist users with SMS-managed data set allocations via dtouch, for example. You can now also run any other needed SMS commands via smsraw. e2a and a2e assist with EBCDIC and ASCII conversions, which users frequently deal with when handling data sources from non-mainframe systems. Lastly, opercmd has been enhanced with a new -w flag to allow users to specify the exact amount of time the command will run before terminating thus allowing users more fine-grained control over console command completion behavior in addition to the existing timeout parameter. The Python API now also introduces new alias and executable operands to allow copy operations on data sets with aliases via datasets.copy(). The release also contains many more bug fixes and smaller enhancements.

You can find more details for the release here, and download the PAX version here. SMP/E users can also obtain this PTF mod release via APAR/PTF PH54246/UI93771

Additionally, you can learn more information about ZOAU and the new features in the 1.2.5 release by listening to the latest Terminal Talk podcast, where development lead for ZOAU Anthony Giorgio joined Frank DeGillio and Jeff Bisti. In this episode they discuss how ZOAU is a great set of tools which exists to make many common z/OS system tasks happen with less friction and more user friendliness. Anthony Giorgio gives us the info on what we can find, and what we may hope to find in this wonderful piece of software.