Release notes for CICS Performance Analyzer for z/OS® (CICS PA) Version 5.2 plug-in

Copyright statement

(C) Copyright IBM® Corporation 2008, 2014. All rights reserved. For legal information, see https://www.ibm.com/legal/copyright-trademark.

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What's new in this release?

The CICS® PA Version 5.2 plug-in adds further enhancements:
  • A new family of visualizations that show program load activity across a region is provided.
  • A new family of visualizations that show storage allocation across a region is provided.
  • A new visualization that shows an overview of task dispatcher performance is provided.
  • A new visualization that shows an overview of transaction activity is provided.
  • The name of the previous Alerts view is changed to the Statistics Alerts view. This view and the associated statistics visualizations are now available in the CICS Explorer SM perspective as well as the CICS PA perspective.
  • Access to the relevant visualization from certain dispatcher alerts, loader alerts, monitoring alerts, or storage alerts in the Statistics Alerts view is now available.
  • A new Transaction Performance Alerts view provides details of performance alerts.
  • A new Transaction performance detail view shows transaction performance conditions for a specified instance of a transaction in a graphical format.
  • Access to the relevant Transaction performance detail view from certain performance alerts in the Transaction Performance Alerts view is now available.
  • The XMG Transaction global view now provides more transaction class information and links to further transaction class visualization.
  • Layouts are applied to the Sheet view to enhance the data. For each type of statistics record, a default layout is provided to display relevant columns of data together. For summary records and performance list records, predefined layouts are provided to display the appropriate data for different analysis types.
  • The name of the previous Records view is changed to the CICS SMF Records view and now contains the following tabs:
    • The CICS SMF Tables tab shows the types of monitoring or statistics records, grouped by record categories.
    • The Selected records tab provides the filters to select the records that are displayed in the Sheet view.
  • The pie charts in the Transaction detail view are enhanced further:
    • Existing charts now include additional fields and enhanced presentation.
    • The following new charts are provided: Program Request, Temporary Storage Request, and Transient Data Request.
  • The Transaction detail, XMC Transaction class, XMG Transaction global, and XMR Transaction resource views are now shown in the main section of the CICS PA perspective, rather than at the bottom.
  • New V5.2 HDB list and summary templates are supported.
  • New fields are added to existing summary templates.
  • When you copy and paste data into an Excel spreadsheet, a standard ISO date format is used.

The What's New topic in the CICS PA plug-in help documentation describes the new and changed items in more detail. To display the topic, click Help > Help Contents > CICS PA Plug-in User Guide > What's new in the CICS PA plug-in V5.2

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System requirements and prerequisites

The CICS PA Version 5.2 plug-in must be installed in the CICS Explorer® Version 5.2.

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Downloading and installing the CICS PA plug-in

Note: 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 PA plug-in. The CICS Explorer download page 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 PA plug-in.
To download the CICS PA plug-in from the download website:
  1. Click the CICS PA plug-in download link.
  2. Save the compressed file in a temporary directory. Do NOT extract the file. CICS Explorer extracts the contents automatically.
To install the CICS PA plug-in in CICS Explorer:
  1. Start CICS Explorer.
  2. From the main menu, click Help > Install New Software.
  3. In the Install window, click Add. The Add Repository archive dialog box is displayed.
  4. In the Add Repository dialog, click Archive.
  5. In the Repository archive window, locate and select the CICS PA plug-in compressed file that you downloaded previously, and click Open.
  6. In the Add Repository dialog, click OK. The IBM CICS Performance Analyzer Plugin is listed in the Install window.
    If the message Duplicate location is displayed, one of the following reasons apply:
    1. If this is your first attempt to install the CICS PA plug-in in CICS Explorer 5.2, you have installed CICS Explorer in a directory that contains residual information from a previous installation. Install CICS Explorer again in an empty directory, then install the CICS PA plug-in again.
    2. You have previously installed, or prepared to install, the plug-in at this location, and CICS Explorer has saved the location details. Cancel the Add Repository dialog. In the Install window, use the Work with field to select the location that contains the plug-in to install, then continue with the next step.
  7. Select IBM CICS Performance Analyzer Plugin in the list and click Next.
  8. Click Next to confirm the installation.
  9. 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 PA 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 PA 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 PA then click OK.

If you are not familiar with the CICS PA plug-in, help documentation is integrated with the product and includes a basic tutorial. To display the tutorial for the CICS PA plug-in, click Help > Help Contents > CICS PA Plug-in User Guide > CICS PA plug-in basic tutorial.

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Known issues and limitations

The following limitations exist in the CICS PA Version 5.2 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.

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