Upgrading CICS Explorer

This topic summarizes the actions that you may need to upgrade CICS Explorer®.

Recommendation: You are recommended to use the most recent fix pack release of CICS Explorer to get all available capabilities and to work with CICS regions at any supported release level.

Upgrade actions

The following table lists the actions that you must perform when upgrading your CICS Explorer to a higher release, regardless of your current release. The following sections describe these actions in detail.

Table 1. Common actions
Action Mandatory or optional?
Check compatibility of CICS Explorer Mandatory
Back up your CICS Explorer workspace Optional, but recommended
Upgrade or install a new copy of IBM CICS Explorer Mandatory

Check compatibility of CICS Explorer

Be it CICS Explorer for Aqua or CICS Explorer on Eclipse Marketplace you must use a release of CICS Explorer that supports the release level of your CICS region. As CICS Explorer is compatible with earlier versions, you are recommended to use the most recent fix pack release of CICS Explorer.

For detailed information about compatibility between CICS Explorer and CICS TS, see the Table 2 provided in the Downloading and installing CICS Explorer.

In CICS Explorer, some features are available only on higher releases of CICS TS, or they require server enablement.

Back up your CICS Explorer workspace

Before you upgrade or install a new copy of CICS Explorer, it is advisable to back up your CICS Explorer workspace. Between different versions of CICS Explorer, the workspace data format might change and compatibility with an earlier version might not be possible.

For instructions, see Taking a backup of the CICS Explorer workspace.

Upgrade or install a new copy of IBM CICS Explorer

If you use CICS Explorer for Aqua, you cannot directly upgrade from one Aqua version to another because the Eclipse platform underneath is different. Instead, you need to install a new copy of CICS Explorer. Within an Aqua version, you can upgrade CICS Explorer to get more recent fix packs in the same way as it was installed.

If you use CICS Explorer on Eclipse Marketplace, in your Eclipse IDE, click Help > Check for Updates to get more recent fix packs of IBM CICS Explorer.

For detailed instructions, see Downloading and installing CICS Explorer.