This document lists the Adabas 8.5 enhancements.
As announced in the Release Notes for previous Adabas versions, utilities ADAACK, ADADCK, ADAICK, ADAPRI, and ADAVAL have now been consolidated into the single utility ADACHK. Utilities ADAACK, ADADCK, ADAICK, ADAPRI, and ADAVAL are no longer supported, and you are now required to use the new ADACHK utility instead. To determine which ADACHK utility function to use, read ADACHK Function Equivalences with Other Utility Functions.
Adabas 8.5 SP4 provides support for the following new releases of products that are not included in the Adabas library:
| Release Date | Products |
|---|---|
| October 2023 |
Adabas Manager 9.2 SP0 Adabas Review 5.3 SP1 Entire Net-Work 6.6 SP1 Entire Net-Work 6.6 Light SP1 |
| October 2022 |
Adabas Auditing 2.2 SP2 Adabas Manager 9.1 SP0 Adabas Review 5.2 SP2 Adabas SAF Security 8.4 SP1 Entire Net-Work Light 6.5 SP1 |
| October 2021 |
Adabas Auditing 2.2 SP1 Event Replicator for Adabas 4.1 SP1 |
The above product releases may also be used with previous Adabas 8.5 releases, but additional service may be required. Details are supplied in the individual product release notes and/or ZAPS data sets.
With the new Adabas add-on product Adabas Auditing for Mainframes, several enhancements touch Adabas components. Most notably, a new direct access container type ALOG is available (DDNAME DDALOGRx). It is used to record the Audit Events by the Adabas Auditing server on behalf of the Adabas nuclei. Please see the Adabas Auditing for Mainframe documentation for details.
Adabas V8.5 SP1 and later extends support for large pages to include pageable large pages.
Pageable large page support allows storage to be backed by 1M large pages without the configuration restrictions of fixed large page support (e.g. by reserving space via the LFAREA parameter in SYS1.PARMLIB member IEASYSxx).
To check the availability of pageable large pages, refer to the IBM documentation for z/OS and for the features supported by your CPU model.
Additional options to the ADARUN LARGEPAGE parameter are defined, allowing you to indicate whether your Adabas nucleus should attempt to make use of pageable large pages. For more information, see LARGEPAGE : Large Page Support Option.
Note that the implementation of pageable large page support by IBM indicates a preference for the storage to be backed by pageable large pages. If no pageable large pages are available, or if certain operations (e.g. page-fixing) are performed against storage backed by pageable large page, storage backed by 1M large page can get demoted to being backed by pageable 4K pages during the run time of the job. Once storage has been demoted to being backed by 4K pages, it will continue to be backed by 4K pages for the remaining duration of the job. The success or otherwise of the request to allocate storage backed by large pages is indicated via the ADAI39 and ADAI44 messages described in the Messages manual. If an area of storage initially backed by large pages is later demoted to 4K pages, there is no indication of this within the Adabas job.
An attempt to allocate storage using pageable large pages will occur in the following situations:
In an Adabas nucleus running with LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES, an attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages will be made for the large buffer area associated with various ADARUN parameters, including LBP, LFP, and LWP. The flush I/O pool (ADARUN parameter LFIOP) will be allocated above the 2G bar in storage backed by 4K pages. No attempt is made to allocate flush I/O pool storage above the 2G bar using 1M pageable large pages, as this area is used for I/O and will therefore get demoted to being backed by 4K pages.
In an Adabas nucleus running with LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=NO, an attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages will be made for the large buffer area associated with various ADARUN parameters, including LBP, LFP, LWP, and LFIOP. Users should note that potentially large parts of this buffer area (those used for I/O) are subject to being demoted to being backed by 4K pages. For these areas, any potential performance benefit in using 1M pageable large pages will be lost for the duration of the job.
In an Adabas Parallel Services environment, specifying CLUCACHETYPE=P64 will attempt to allocate storage above the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the global cache area (ADARUN parameter CLUCACHESIZE).
In an Adabas Parallel Services environment, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES will attempt to allocate storage above the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the cast-out directory buffer (size derived internally and not associated with any single ADARUN parameter).
With Event Replicator V4.1 SP1 or later, in an Event Replication Server, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES will attempt to allocate storage above the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the replication pool (ADARUN parameter LRPL).
With versions of Event Replicator prior to V4.1 SP1, in an Event Replication Server, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES will attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the replication pool (ADARUN parameter LRPL).
For all supported versions of Event Replicator, in an Event Replication Server, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=NO will attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the replication pool (ADARUN parameter LRPL).
For all supported versions of Event Replicator, an Adabas nucleus running with REPLICATION=YES, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES will attempt to allocate storage above the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the replication pool (ADARUN parameter LRPL).
For all supported versions of Event Replicator, an Adabas nucleus running with REPLICATION=YES, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=NO will attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the replication pool (ADARUN parameter LRPL).
In an Adabas nucleus running with AUDITING=YES or in an Auditing Server, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=YES will attempt to allocate storage above the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the auditing pool (ADARUN parameter LAP, described in the Adabas Auditing documentation).
In an Adabas nucleus running with AUDITING=YES or in an Auditing Server, specifying LARGEPAGE=P64 and V64BIT=NO will attempt to allocate storage below the 2G bar backed by pageable large pages for the auditing pool (ADARUN parameter LAP, described in the Adabas Auditing documentation).
In an Adabas nucleus running with the Adabas Caching Facility active, allocation of the various storage areas using pageable large pages will be attempted according to extensions to the associated Adabas Caching Facility parameters. These parameters are described in the ADARUN parameters section of the Operations manual.
Adabas 8.5 SP4 in conjunction with Adabas Manager 9.2 SP0 introduces the Adabas Online Services for z/OSMF Utility Server (AOZ). AOZ is a RESTful server that leverages IBM’s z/OSMF framework to provide APIs for Adabas Manager (AMN) to enable Adabas utility job submission and job output display.
The following section describes how to install the AOZ server. Refer to the Adabas Manager documentation for information on the features that require the installation of the AOZ server.
Note:
The AOZ server is distributed with Adabas Online Services 8.5 SP4.
For correct operation of the AOZ server, the Adabas Online Services license file must be available in the target Adabas server(s) being administered by Adabas Manager.
The following table describes the overview for a successful installation of the AOZ server.
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Create a UNIX System Services installation directory. |
| 2 | Copy the AOZ package to the installation directory. |
| 3 | Extract the AOZ package into the installation directory. |
| 4 | Copy the sample JCL to the z/OS procedure library. |
| 5 | Tailor the sample JCL for starting the AOZ server. |
The following table describes the detailed steps to successfully install the AOZ server.
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 |
Create a UNIX System Services installation
directory.
Create a directory in the UNIX System Services file system to use as your installation directory. For the purposes of these installation instructions, the chosen installation directory is ‘/opt/softwareag’. $ mkdir -p /opt/softwareag |
| 2 |
Copy the AOZ package to the installation
directory.
Copy the AOZ distribution package to the ‘/opt/softwareag’ installation directory. cp "//'hlq.AOZvrs.TAR'" /opt/softwareag/AOZvrs.tar.Z |
| 3 |
Extract the AOZ package into the installation
directory.
Extract the contents of the AOZ package in the UNIX System Services installation directory. $ cd /opt/softwareag $ uncompress < AOZvrs.tar.Z | tar -oxf - The following components are extracted into ‘/opt/softwareag/aoz’:
|
| 4 |
Copy the sample JCL to the z/OS procedure
library.
Copy the sample JCL for the AOZ server started procedure to the z/OS procedure library. $ cd /opt/softwareag/aoz $ cp AOZSTC "//'hlq.PROCLIB(AOZSTC)'" |
| 5 |
Tailor the sample JCL for starting the AOZ
server.
Modify the following variables in the JCL for the started procedure:
|
You can now display the individual status of each PLOG or CLOG dataset in the Adabas Online System facility.
To enable the new feature, install the AOS854.ALLIX02 dataset and apply the optional
zap AY854181 to your environment. To display the CLOG/PLOG dataset status, select the
M - CLOG/PLOG dataset status option in the Session Opercoms
menu.
For more information about the CLOG/PLOG dataset status, see the Adabas Online System documentation.
When displaying user queue elements (UQE), command queue elements (CQE), or hold queue
elements (HQE) in the Adabas Online System facility, you can now use the new program
function key PF5 Filter to filter the displayed information.
To enable the new feature, install the AOS854.ALLIX01 dataset and clear your Natural
buffer pools. In the Queue Displays menu, use the PF5 function
key to envoke the Filter pop-up menu and select what information is
displayed. To return to the original display of information, clear the fields in the
Filter pop-up menu.
For more information about the filtering function, see the Adabas Online System documentation.
Adabas 8.5 SP3 provides support for the following new products in the Adabas realm:
Adabas Auditing for z/OS
Adabas Encryption for z/OS
Adabas 8.5 SP3 provides support for the following new releases of products that are not included in the Adabas library:
Adabas Review 5.2
Adabas SAF Security 8.3
Adabas 8.5 SP3 uses the updated ICS 3.1.1 library based on International Components for Unicode (ICU V65).
Databases that have enabled Universal Encoding Support must change their JCL. The changed JCL must include the new ICS311.Lxxx library in the STEPLIB/TASKLIB chain.
When starting a nucleus, a check is made with the System Access Facility (SAF) security server to either allow the nucleus to start without APF authorization or prohibit access based on a security profile rule in the FACILITY class. With Version 8.5.2, you can now specify a different class when installing the SVC. For further information, refer to Initializing the Adabas Communication Environment in the Installation for z/OS documentation.
This enhancement was also made available to earlier releases by fixes AO851011, AO843017, AO842011 and AO835028.
If an Adabas nucleus is started with ZIIP=YES on a system (LPAR) with no zIIPs (System z Integrated Information Processors), the zIIP-related statistics in the Adabas session or interval statistics, in the outputs of operator command and ADADBS OPERCOM DZSTAT, and in the AOS zIIP Statistics screen now directly show the potential zIIP offload rate that Adabas could have achieved if a zIIP had been available.
For further information, refer to Understanding the zIIP-Related Statistics in the Adabas for zIIP documentation.
In conjunction with Adabas SAF Security version 8.2 SP2 Patch level 2 or above, Adabas 8.5 SP2 provides start-up protection for Entire Net-Work jobs.
When starting an Entire Net-Work job, Adabas SAF Security uses the access level of the User ID assigned to the job to determine:
whether to permit the start-up.
whether to run in WARN mode or FAIL mode.
This provides an identical level of start-up protection as that currently provided for Adabas nuclei.
Refer to the Operations section of the Adabas SAF Security documentation for more information on Adabas SAF Security operation in Entire Net-Work.
From Adabas Version 8.5.1 onward, a number of add-on products that were previously distributed on separate libraries are now included in the ADA library:
Adabas Caching Facility (ACF)
Adabas Cluster Services (ALS)
Adabas Delta Save Facility (ADE)
Adabas Online System (AOS)
Adabas Parallel Services (ASM)
Separate license files are required for using these add-ons. Also, jobs used for applying zaps to them may need to be adjusted.
Refer to Installation and License for details.
When the Adabas nucleus or an Adabas utility is running with ADARUN parameter ZIIP=YES, Adabas 8.5 offers the following performance enhancements:
Adabas utilities with many I/O operations to sequential input or output datasets will see substantial reductions in the overall CPU consumption on general processors and zIIPs, along with increases to their zIIP offload rates.
Adabas nuclei will see fewer TCB/SRB mode switches for timer services.
Adabas nuclei running with Review, as well as Event Replicator (Reptor) servers, will see fewer TCB/SRB mode switches for subtask waits.
The ADATCP subtask of the Adabas nucleus (see also Point-to-Point Support for Adabas (ADATCP) below) is now zIIP-enabled.
In conjunction with Adabas SAF Security, the following security-related enhancements are now available:
Refer to Adabas Security for a general description of the security measures that are available to prevent unauthorized access to the Adabas environment.
Nucleus administration functions can now be protected ensuring unauthorized use of such functions is disallowed.
For example, a user or group may be allowed to display particular nucleus session parameters but disallowed from modifying them.
This new level of protection is provided in addition to the existing protection available for Adabas Utilities and Adabas Basic Services.
Refer to the Operations section of the Adabas SAF Security documentation for more information on this topic including the list of applicable administration functions and the format of the resource names used.
The execution of utilities can now be protected at the utility function/file level, extending the existing name-level protection.
For example, a user or group may be allowed to run ADASAV SAVE but not ADASAV RESTORE. Or, a user or group may be allowed to run ADASAV SAVE FILE=10 but not ADASAV SAVE FILE=20.
Refer to the Operations section of the Adabas SAF Security documentation for more information on this topic including the list of applicable utility functions and the format of the resource names used.
Adabas Security violations (against file permission levels defined using ADASCR) can now be logged to external security packages that support the use of the general-purpose security-audit request RACROUTE REQUEST=AUDIT.
Refer to the Operations section of the Adabas SAF Security documentation for more information on this topic.
ADARUN now checks the version indicators in the modules that it loads and reports differences to its own version indicators. For modules belonging to the Adabas base product, ADARUN checks the version, release and patch-level indicators. For modules belonging to Adabas add-on products, ADARUN checks the version and release indicators. ADARUN lists the modules whose version indicators do not match.
If the Adabas SAF Security add-on product is installed, ADARUN terminates with the new Error-25 if one of these version checks fails.
This section describes the utility enhancements made in Adabas version 8.5.
A number of ADADBS functions accept the new parameter INPARALLEL=YES|NO:
With YES, the function may be executed even if other users are active on the target file.
With NO (the default), the function requires exclusive file control, as before.
The INPARALLEL parameter may be specified for these functions:
ADADBS CHANGE FILE=fnr,FIELD=de,OPTION=NOUQ[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
ADADBS DSREUSE FILE=fnr,MODE=ON|OFF[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
ADADBS ISNREUSE FILE=fnr,MODE=ON|OFF[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
ADADBS MODFCB FILE=fnr,...[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO] – unless FILEREADONLY=YES or LOBFILE is also specified
ADADBS NEWFIELD FILE=fnr[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
ADADBS RELEASE FILE=fnr,DESCRIPTOR=de[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
ADADBS RENAME FILE=fnr,NAME=newname[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO] – except for FILE=0 (rename database)
ADADBS REPLICATION FILE=fnr,...[,INPARALLEL=YES|NO]
For more information, refer to the above functions of the ADADBS utility, in the Adabas Utilities Manual.
Adabas 8.5 SP1 provides the following miscellaneous changes and enhancements:
Work and PLOG records now contain an 8-byte timestamp (STCK). With Adabas Version 8.5, the 8-byte timestamp is now always included on all protection records. This was true for cluster databases in prior versions and will now be true for noncluster databases as well. In addition, the timestamp will be retained on the sequential protection logs. This was an enhancement requested for both diagnostic and auditing purposes.
Now each record contains the exact timestamp of when the update was made for both the dual protection logs and also the sequential protection logs. In previous versions the sequential protection records shared the timestamp of the header so ADASEL reporting was always not precisely accurate per record.
The existing STARTING FROM and ENDING AT clauses can be used to restrict selections to records added, updated, or deleted within a time range. These parameters remain the same but ADASEL now does its selection based off the timestamps in individual PLOG records rather than just the timestamp for the PLOG block.
The additional timestamp on each protection record slightly increases the amount of data written to the Work and PLOG datasets for non-cluster databases. The utilization of Work and PLOGs should be watched and if necessary, their sizes adjusted.
ADATCP is a subset of an Entire Net-Work kernel that runs as a subtask in an Adabas session. It provides direct communication with application programs, eliminating the need for intermediate Net-work kernels.
Using Point-to-point support for Adabas (ADATCP) requires Entire Net-Work Version 6.5 SP2 or above and Entire Net-Work TCP/IP Option Version 6.5 SP1 or above.
A valid Entire Net-Work license is now required for ADATCP. Because the Adabas nucleus and the ADATCP kernel can both read DDLIC to obtain their license, it is recommended that the Entire Net-Work license be assembled into a load module. Entire Net-Work licensing requires MLC135 or above.
See Software AG Mainframe Product Licensing for more information.
ADATCP now works with the Adabas Directory Server (ADI).
New parameters may be provided to ADATCP via the TCPIN DD statement. See New Simple Connection Line Driver (TCPX) DRIVER and LINK Parameters below for details.
Internal enhancements have been made to ADATCP to improve stability and robustness.
ADATCP now runs in zIIP mode when the Adabas session has zIIP active.
The following table summarizes the new Simple Connection Line Driver (TCPX) DRIVER and LINK parameters introduced:
| Parameter | DRIVER or LINK Statement? | New or Changed? | Description | Introduced in Release |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADI | DRIVER | New | This parameter was added to the TCPX line driver in this release. It specifies whether Adabas Directory Server (ADI) support is enabled or disabled. | 8.5 SP1 |
| ADIHOST | DRIVER | New | This new parameter specifies the hostname of the Adabas Directory Server (ADI). The hostname is used to attempt to acquire the TCP/IP address of the system where the ADI resides. | 8.5 SP1 |
| ADIPART | DRIVER | New | This new optional parameter specifies the partition name to be used with the Adabas Directory Server (ADI). If specified, the partition name will be included in all target entries added to the ADI by this session. Partitions are used to restrict database access; when an application queries the ADI for a target and specifies a partition, only entries with the same partition name are returned. Likewise, if the query does not specify a partition, only entries that do not have a partition are returned. | 8.5 SP1 |
| ADIPORT | DRIVER | New | This new parameter specifies the port number used to communicate with the Adabas Directory Server (ADI). | 8.5 SP1 |
For more information about TCPX DRIVER statement parameters, read TCPX DRIVER Statement in the Entire Net-Work TCP/IP Option documentation.
TCP/IP Socket Support for Batch/TSO is provided with Adabas Version 8.5 SP2.
For information regarding the enabling of this support, read Enabling TCP/IP Socket Support for Batch/TSO in the Adabas Installation for z/OS documentation.
The Universal Encoding Support (UES) in Adabas 8.5 has been changed to use the International Components for Unicode for Software AG (ICS). ICS is an alternative code page conversion subsystem. Its use with Adabas was introduced as an option in Adabas 8.4 SP2 and was made the default with Adabas for zIIP 8.4 SP3. ICS is based on International Components for Unicode (ICU V58.2), an open source project initiated by IBM (http://site.icu-project.org). ICU is already being used with other Software AG products like Natural for Mainframes and Adabas on Linux, UNIX and Windows.
The code page modules of ICS are provided in the separate ICS221.Lnnn load library. If the Universal Encoding Support is to be used, the ICS library must be concatenated to the ADA852.LOAD library in the Adabas nucleus/utility job or job step.
ICS does not require the SMARTS runtime system (APS). It supports the same code pages as ECS. When used with Adabas for zIIP, ICS is more efficient than ECS in converting text between code pages.
For additional information about setting up connections to UES-enabled databases using ICS, see Enabling Universal Encoding Support (UES) for Your Adabas Nucleus.