Release notes for CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS (CICS IA) Version 5.5 plug-in

This document provides important information about the CICS® IA Version 5.5 plug-in that might not be available in the product.

Copyright statement

(C) Copyright International Business Machines Corp. 2008, 2017. (c) Copyright HCL Technologies Ltd. 2017, 2018. All rights reserved. For legal information, see https://www.ibm.com/legal/copyright-trademark.

What’s new in this release?
System requirements and prerequisites
Updating an existing version of CICS IA plug-in
Downloading and installing the CICS IA plug-in
Getting started
Known issues and limitations

What’s new in this release?

The CICS IA Version 5.5 plug-in adds further enhancements:

More detailed and meaningful messages in the 'Used By' view giving an advanced level of resource discovery for improved usability.
Improved resource visualization.
Bug fixes and modification of Expand and Collapse feature in the Resource Usage Visualization.
Enhancement of 'User Command Flow' in IA Navigation view.
Integration with ADDI.
Support for IBM® CICS Transaction Server for z/OS®, Version 5.5.

The What's New topic in the CICS IA plug-in help documentation describes the new and changed items in more detail. To display the topic, click Help > Help Contents > CICS IA Plug-in User Guide > What's new in the CICS IA Version 5.5 plug-in.

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System requirements and prerequisites

The CICS IA Version 5.5 plug-in must be installed in the CICS Explorer® Version 5.5.

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Updating an existing version of CICS IA plug-in

If you already have the CICS IA® plug-in installed you can use the CICS Explorer Software Updates function to update the code to the latest level, without having to reinstall the product. Before updating the CICS IA plug-in, you must update the CICS Explorer to the latest level. If you do not, CICS IA plug-in might not work with the old version of CICS Explorer.

Updating instructions are in the task Updating and Installing software in the IBM Explorer for z/OS help documentation. To access the task from the main menu:

Help > Help Contents > IBM Explorer for z/OS User Guide > Tasks > Updating and installing software > Checking for, and installing, software updates

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Downloading and installing the CICS IA plug-in

When you installed the CICS IA plug-in, you will have used one of the two mechanisms:

Used IBM Installation Manager to install.
Installed z/OS Explorer or CICS Explorer into an existing Eclipse instance using the Help > Install new software menu. This is using the Eclipse p2 update mechanism.

If you installed CICS Explorer by using the IBM Installation Manager, do not use the following procedure. Instead, you can use Installation Manager to install the CICS IA plug-in. The Mainframe Development page > Downloads > Eclipse Tools contains the URL for the composite update site. You must add the URL to the Installation Manager Preferences - Repositories page. Click the Install option in the Installation Manager wizard, and follow the prompts to install the CICS IA plug-in.

To install the CICS IA plug-in using the Eclipse p2 update mechanism:

Launch Eclipse.
Click Help > Install New Software > Add.
Add the applicable repository URL (from the Mainframe Development page > Downloads > Eclipse Tools).
At the bottom of the window, enable the checkbox for "Group items by category" to view the list of all individual features.
Select IBM CICS Interdependency Analyzer for z/OS in the list and click Next.
Click Next to confirm the installation.
Review the license and click the relevant radio button. Click Finish to complete the installation, or Cancel if you do not accept the license.
If you accepted the license, the CICS IA plug-in is installed into CICS Explorer. You are prompted to restart CICS Explorer, which ensures that the plug-in starts in a clean environment.

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Getting started

When CICS Explorer restarts, the CICS Explorer perspective is displayed. To open the CICS IA perspective, either click the Open Perspective toolbar icon, or click Window > Open Perspective > Other in the main menu. In the Open Perspective window, select CICS IA then click OK.

If you are not familiar with the CICS IA plug-in, help documentation is integrated with the product and includes instructions to configure a connection and get started. To display this information for the CICS IA plug-in, click Help > Help Contents > CICS IA plug-in User Guide > Getting started with the CICS IA plug-in.

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Known issues and limitations

The following limitations exist in the CICS IA plug-in:

If your DB2 connection is secured by using SSL, the following limitations apply:
- It is not possible to bypass certificate management with the DB2/JDBC driver. Therefore, the Bypass certificate management checkbox in the certificate preference page is ignored for this type of connection.
- The DB2/JDBC driver automatically chooses a default Secure Socket protocol of TLSv1. It is not possible to overwrite this protocol by using The Advanced socket configuration in the certificate preference page.
CICS IA does not provide support for CICS TS VSE/ESA.

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