Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS Release Notes

This topic contains the following sections:

•	About Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS

•	Key Features and Components

•	What’s New in This Release

•	Interoperability

•	Dependencies

•	Platform Support

•	Upgrade Considerations

•	Behavior Changes

•	Limitations and Known Issues

About Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS supports quick migration of IBM mainframe applications to Oracle Tuxedo with low risk. It provides a combination of APIs and services that allows mainframe CICS components to run unchanged, preserving years of investment in business logic and data. It protects application users from change by supporting standard 3270 terminal emulators. It also provides familiar APIs and functions that developers use in their mainframe applications.

The result is the ability to quickly and with low risk migrate IBM mainframe COBOL and C/C++ applications to open systems running Oracle Tuxedo. This provides substantial cost savings, elastic scalability, and greater flexibility.

Key Features and Components

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS provides a runtime environment for IBM CICS applications.

•	Preprocessors for COBOL and C programs that expand EXEC CICS macros and map CICS keywords into runtime interfaces.

•	A runtime environment based on Oracle Tuxedo that executes CICS programs and transactions, and provides required functions and services, including interoperability with IBM CICS on z/OS.

•	A 3270 terminal server for Oracle Tuxedo that enables tn3270 terminal emulators to interact with CICS programs and transactions migrated to Tuxedo ART in the same way they interact with CICS on an IBM mainframe.

•	Access to VSAM files, Oracle Database, DB2, IMS DB, and other data sources.

•	A range of built-in integrations for CICS applications, including IBM WMQ, Sockets, CPI-C, APPC/DTP, DPL, SOAP and REST Web Services.

•	CICS authentication support via LDAP, Microsoft Active Directory, or IBM RACF on z/OS.

•	An ATMI user interface server for Oracle Tuxedo that enables a broad range of UIs connected over ATMI to interact with CICS programs and transactions migrated to Tuxedo ART without changing the application program code.

•	Integration with TSAM Plus for real-time monitoring of CICS transactions and terminals with detailed Callpath tracing, alerting, and CICS resource management using TSAM Manager.

•	Integration with TSAM Plus plug-in for OEM-based (Oracle Enterprise Manager) monitoring and management with in-depth availability and performance metrics, on-demand cloud provisioning, and elastic cloud scale-out.

What’s New in This Release

This release includes the following new features and enhancements:

•	CICS Pre-Processor

•	Support of abbreviations in CICS verbs and parameters and tolerance for errors

•	Enhanced CICS commands/options coverage in COBOL programs

•	ASSIGN FCI/TERMCODE/OPID

•	DUMP TRANSACTION

•	ENQ MAXLIFETIME

•	INQUIRE STORAGE

•	LINK TRANSID

•	LOAD/RELEASE PROGRAM

•	PUSH/POP CONDITION

•	RECEIVE ASIS

•	SEND MAP SET

•	SET PROGRAM NEWCOPY/PHASEIN

•	SET TDQUEUE OPEN/CLOSE

•	SIGNON/SIGNOFF

•	SOAPFAULT CREATE

•	VERIFY PASSWORD

•	WAIT TERMINAL

•	WRITE JOURNALNAME/JOURNALNUM

•	Enhanced CICS commands/options coverage in C/C++ programs:

•

ABEND

•	ASKTIME ABSTIME

•	ASSIGN APPLID USERID LANGINUSE

•	FORMATTIME

•	GET CONTAINER

•	LINK DATALENGTH TRANSID SYNCONRETRUN SYSID

•	PUT CONTAINER

•	RETRIEVE SET

•	SYNCPOINT/SYNCPOINT ROLLBACK

•	CICS Runtime Infrastructure

•	Configuring ARTSRM in multiple machines in Tuxedo MP cluster

•	Support of TSQ pool, improved HA of TSQ in MP cluster, and support for non-printable characters in TSQ names

•	Extended length userid/password (up to 20 characters) support in CESN

•	Customizing 'Good Morning' screen

•	Application List menu / ALST transaction and multiple session management for tn3270 users (similar to multi-application support provided by CA TPX or IBM CL/SuperSession)

•	CICS program auto-install configuration support

•	Keepalive support between ARTTCPL/H and tn3270 client

•	Timeout support for tn3270

•	Support for passing command line options to customized callback functions in ART CICS servers

•	Non-XA mode support in ART application servers for programs that are managing their own DB connections

•	WMQ and database reconnect support for all ART application servers

•	Tagging version stamps in CICS programs and UDB bind files

•	CICS Program Supportability

•	Configurable reverse attach debugging (based on transid, program, sysid, termid, and userid), which helps to set up debug sessions for specific users or components

•	Integration with COBOL-IT profiling, which helps to obtain detailed statistics on the run-time performance of a CICS application

•	CICS Program Integrations

•	TCP/IP and EZASocket support in CICS programs

•	Automated mapping between COMMAREA copybook and SOAP/JSON formats using Tuxedo RECORD buffer type for CICS Web Services (inbound/outbound) support

•	CPI-C support in CICS programs with CPI-C libraries for Windows and JEE clients connecting over Tuxedo Windows Client and WTC respectively

•	APPC support in CICS progeams with APPC/DTP Java classes for JEE applications connecting over WTC

•	CICS MQ wrappers for built-in MQ connection management

•	CICS external file handler ARTEXTFH

•	Support for submitting both KSH and JCL online through SPOOL and TDQ intra trigger

•	Data Access Enhancements

•	Variable length VSAM file support

•	Support for accessing IMS Database on z/OS or IMS data migrated to an RDBMS via a DLI-2-SQL access layer

Interoperability

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS maintains full interoperability with:

•	Oracle Tuxedo 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for Batch 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for IMS 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Rehosting Workbench 12c Release 2 (12.1.3 and 12.2.2)

•	Oracle Tuxedo System and Application Monitor Plus (TSAM Plus) 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle Services Architecture Leveraging Tuxedo (SALT) 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle Jolt 12c Release 2 (12.2.2)

•	Oracle JCA Adapter 12c Release 1 (12.1.1)

•	CICS CPI-C and APPC support for Java is compatible with Oracle WebLogic 10.3

•	CICS CPI-C support for Windows is compatible with VS2015 or higher

•	CICS 3270/BMS support is compatible with standards-compliant tn3270 terminal emulators

•	CICS WMQ support and transaction triggering is compatible with IBM WebSphere MQ 7.x

•	IBM CICS 3.x, 4.x, 5.x

Dependencies

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS 12c Release 2 (12.2.2) installation requires Oracle Tuxedo 12c Release 2 (12.2.2) installation.

Use of some CICS features requires Oracle Database 11.2.0 or higher, or DB2 LUW v9.7 or higher. These features include:

•	Recoverable TSQs

•

TSQ Pool

•	ARTSRM HA configuration in Tuxedo MP cluster

Access to IMS Database from CICS programs requires Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for IMS 12c Release 2 (12.2.2).

Platform Support

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS 12c Release 2 (12.2.2) supported platforms are listed in the Supported Platforms in the Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtimes Installation Guide.

Upgrade Considerations

When you upgrade Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS from 12c Release 1 (12.1.1) or older release, you must rerun the CICS Preprocessor for the CICS COBOL programs and re-compile them. For upgrades from Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS 12c Release 2 (12.1.3), you do not need to rerun the CICS Preprocessor; however, the programs might need to be re-compiled with versions of COBOL compilers certified for this release (see certification matrix link in Supported Platforms) depending on the binary compatibility of the COBOL compilers.

If upgrading from release 11.1.1.2 or earlier, you must ensure the ARTADM server is configured in the Oracle Tuxedo UBBCONFIG file for CICS Runtime.

If using COBOL-IT, you must specify the -fthread-safe option when compiling CICS programs.

When using Micro Focus Visual COBOL 2.2:

•	On AIX/Solaris OS platforms, make the following soft links in $COBDIR/lib:

ln -s libcobrts64.so.3 libcobrts64.so.2

ln -s libcobrts64_t.so.3 libcobrts64_t.so.2

ln -s libcobmisc64.so.3 libcobmisc64.so.2

ln -s libcobmisc64_t.so.3 libcobmisc64_t.so.2

ln -s libcobcrtn64.so.3 libcobcrtn64.so.2

•	We recommend you set COBOL runtime tunable parameter subsystem_cancel_mode=1, which specifies logical cancel for CBL_SUBSYSTEM cancels. See Micro Focus documentation for more information.

Behavior Changes

•	The second FML base in $KIXDIR/include/msgflds32 is changed from 30002700 to 30001100.

•	The ARTSRM server is required for many enhancements introduced in 12c Release 2 (12.2.2). You must ensure it is configured in the Oracle Tuxedo UBBCONFIG file for CICS runtime if you use any of the following enhancements:

•	TASK management

•	Named COUNTER support

•	system INQUIRE verbs.

•	For more information, see ARTSRM Configuration in Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS Reference Guide.

Limitations and Known Issues

Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS limitations and known issues are as follows:

•	BMS file name cannot be used as MAPSET name in CICS SEND MAP and RECEIVE MAP commands.

•	All the RBA and Generic options for CICS commands are not supported in file-to-file scenarios when using COBOL-IT.

•	When ISC_ENABLE=YES is set, ART CICS cannot validate LUNAME across multi-CICS regions.

•	There are some restrictions when users implement and run CICS applications in C language. For more information, see CICS Runtime C Program Support.

•	When using a COBOL-IT compiler, you must configure variable COB_ENABLE_XA before booting up ARTSTRN.

•	When using a COBOL-IT compiler, you must make sure PROGRAM-ID is the same as the COBOL program name. Different COBOL programs must define different PROGRAM-ID.

•	APPC session negotiation is not supported.

•	Profile resource definition is not supported. Default profile DFHCICSA is assumed; there is no timeout mechanism for this profile.

•	Applications communicating via DTP must run within the same Oracle Tuxedo domain.

•	Communication between ART CICS and Mainframe CICS via TMA SNA inherits the following limitations from TMA:

•	LUTYPE6.1 protocol is not supported.

•	Only the following APPC conversational programming model scenarios are supported:

1. ART CICS DTP client Request/Response to Mainframe CICS DTP server (server gets control)

2. Mainframe CICS DTP client Request/Response to ART CICS DTP server (client relinquishes control)

3. Transactional ART CICS DTP client Request/Response to Mainframe CICS DTP server (server gets control)

4. Transactional Mainframe CICS DTP client Request/Response to ART CICS DTP Server (client relinquishes control)

For more information, see Oracle Tuxedo Mainframe Adapter for SNA Reference Guide.

•	Sending the data with state in one transmission using the SEND command is not supported.

•	For scenarios 3 and 4, the SEND CONFIRM/ISSUE CONFIRMATION commands must be added to the server and client code respectively in a transactional conversation.

•	Implementations of SYNCPOINT in internal ART CICS and TMA-based ART CICS are different; these two types of sync-level conversation cannot occur in the same transaction.

•	TMA conversation server is terminated using tpreturn(); however, in scenario 2 and 4, TMA-based ART CICS can only map SEND LAST (or FREE), in sync level 0 and SEND CONFIRM in sync level 2 to tpreturn(). As a result, all subsequent operations are not executed.

•	Sync level 1 operation is not supported in Oracle TMA conversation. SEND CONFIRM/ISSUE CONFIRMATION is not supported except in scenarios 3 and 4.

•	Oracle TMA copybook from Mainframe (via ART Workbench), must be aligned before it can be used in ART CICS applications.

•

Every node in the same ART for CICS application (no matter how many domains it is deployed on) must run on homogeneous platforms (for example, CICS Runtime supports this scenario: one node runs on Oracle Linux 6.3 platform while the other node runs on Oracle Linux 6.5 platform. However, CICS Runtime does not support this scenario: one node runs on Oracle Linux platform while the other node runs on Oracle Solaris platform). For all ART for CICS supported platforms, see Supported Platforms in Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtimes Installation Guide.

See Also

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtimes Installation Guide

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS User Guide

•	Oracle Tuxedo Application Runtime for CICS Reference Guide