Changes for Version 2 Release 2

CICS® IA V2.2 delivers a wide range of important new capabilities, including:

CICS IA plug-in
A new CICS IA plug-in for CICS Explorer®, (CICS IA plug-in), that you download to a workstation. Using the Eclipse-based CICS IA plug-in, you can run predefined queries provided with CICS IA and create your own queries to analyze CICS IA data. The CICS IA plug-in replaces the client program that was provided with CICS IA V2.1.

When connected to a system containing the DB2® database with CICS IA data, it can be used to explore and analyze that data. The Eclipse-based interface enables effective data presentation. You can use the queries provided with CICS IA or easily build your own that meet your exact need for information. The CICS IA plug-in presents this information in an hierarchical fashion, showing clearly the resource relationships.

New resource tables
CICS IA V2.2 introduces seven new resource tables. They contain detailed information for seven of the primary resource types:
  • Transactions
  • Programs
  • Files
  • TD queues
  • TS queues
  • Web services
  • Exits
These tables are repositories for information returned from an EXEC CICS INQUIRE request for the relevant resource type. For example, the File table contains information about the file type.
More detailed information on programs
CICS IA V2.2 collects more detailed information on programs. It also provides sample queries that can help plan for CICS TS version-to-version migration. It can help you see which task-related user exits (TRUEs) and global user exits (GLUEs) are customized by your CICS organization. When you have determined the CICS user exits that have changed in the new version, you can identify which exit programs need testing.
Sample queries
CICS IA V2.2 provides sample queries that tell you which programs include CICS SPIs or APIs that have been removed or changed from one version to the next.
Threadsafe identification
CICS IA V2.2 delivers a DB2 table that indicates, by CICS version, which APIs and SPIs are considered to be threadsafe (that is, they do not perform a swap to the QR TCB). It has been shown that running applications as threadsafe can save as much as 15% of processor usage. This CICS IA table, along with detailed information on programs and files, can be used to produce a report for a given program that will provide information such as:
  • Count of threadsafe calls.
  • Count of non-threadsafe calls.
  • Details of these calls.
  • Listings of programs that contain the four EXEC CICS commands that could cause an unsafe affinity between transactions. These commands might need to be resolved for the program to be threadsafe (ADDRESS CWA, LOAD HOLD, GETMAIN SHARED and EXTRACT EXIT).
  • Count of MQ, IMS™, and DB2 calls.
  • Count of dynamic calls.
CICS IA provides the most comprehensive analysis available of threadsafe attributes, so that it provides you with the information you need to assess and modify applications and remove constraints.
Ability to capture new resources
CICS IA V2.2 provides a new table to capture resources used by a Web service. It captures the program name, URIMAP, container, pipeline, mapping levels, WSDL file name, and WSBIND file name. This enables you to understand which resources are required when deploying your Web service from development into test, and from test into production.

CICS IA V2.2 captures resource information for EXEC CICS commands that are considered to be presentation logic. It also captures when the program is called with a COMMAREA or CHANNEL resource. With this information you can identify a legacy program that contains only business logic and could be a candidate to be re-factored into a Web service.

In each new release, CICS IA expands the scope of its data capture. CICS IA V2.2 captures information on the two new resources introduced in CICS TS 3.2 (IPCONN and LIBRARY). It also captures for the first time information on any EXEC CICS command that has more than one resource associated with it. For example, where an EXEC CICS LINK PROGRAM has a channel associated with it, CICS IA collects both the program name and the channel name. In this case, the program is referred to as the primary resource and the channel as the secondary resource. CICS IA maintains such information about related resources so that the CICS IA plug-in can present a useful hierarchical view of resource relationships.

Additional WebSphere® MQ attributes
CICS IA V2.2 delivers extensions to existing support, now reporting on two additional attributes of the MQOPEN request. These are:
  • MQOO_FAIL_IF_QUIESCING
  • MQOO_BIND_ON_OPEN
Improved program call chain
CICS IA V2.2 reports on all programs involved in a chain of called programs, even those that do not invoke CICS services. Previously it reported only on programs that contained EXEC CICS commands. This enhancement ensures you have a complete record of assets involved in a CICS transaction.
Websphere Studio Asset Analyzer
CICS IA V2.2 makes it easy to launch WebSphere Studio Asset Analyzer to extend the scope of analysis. An on-screen button in theCICS IA plug-in launches this companion discovery tool.
Enhanced ISPF configuration EXEC
The ISPF configuration EXEC has been updated to allow you to select further DB2 and data management options. You can:
  • Use DFSMS data, storage, and management classes to define the VSAM datasets used by CICS IA.
  • Customize the size of the VSAM files allocated. For DB2, customize the database name, the storage group name, the plan name for both CICS and batch, and the buffer pools used for table spaces and indexes.
Natural fourth generation language (4GL)
CICS IA V2.2 identifies the use of CICS resources accessed by application programs using Software AG Natural 4GL software. CICS IA V2.2 introduces initial support to identify CICS resources within their Software AG Natural environment:
  • CICS programs called from within Natural programs.
  • Resources used by the CICS programs called from within Natural programs.
  • Calls made to the Adabas task related user exits.


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Timestamp icon Last updated: Friday, 22 November 2013


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