Elastic Batch Platform 19.9 Released

New version 19.9.5 of Elastic Batch Platform (JES/JCL) has been released.   This release contains enhancement requests and resolves reported issues. Download Here.

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.9.5:

• Ticket#12741 - EBP IDCAMS DEFINE AIX and DEFINE PATH updated for Microsoft SQL Server. DELETE of CLUSTER and PATHs updated for Microsoft SQL Server. 

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.6.22:

• Ticket#12561 - Lesser amounts of locking of dataset and internal (DCB) control information may reduce or eliminate locking after job cancellation. 

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.6.11:

• Ticket#12593 - IDCAMS REPRO ranges are introduced with this release of EBP.  In addition to FROMKEY/COUNT requested by this ticket, FROMKEY/TOKEY, SKIP/COUNT, FROMNUMBER/TONUMBER, FROMNUMBER/COUNT, FROMADDRESS/TOADDRESS, FROMADDRESS/COUNT combinations are allowed to copy ranges of Indexed, Relative, and Sequential files managed by the VDB protocol following IBM "DFSMS Access Method Services for Catalogs" documentation (SC26-7394-08).  EBP documentation updated at https://support.heirloom.cc/hc/en-us/articles/212578706-Standard-Utility-Programmers-Guide#idcams .

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.6.6:

• Ticket#12615 - RECSZ added as a synonym for RECORDSIZE in IDCAMS DEFINE CLUSTER statements.
• Ticket#12726 - Support SQL Server for reading through PATHs or AIXes as if they were sequential CLUSTERs by using SQL Server-only "TOP (100) PERCENT" clause on VDB view definition.

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.5.28:

• Ticket#12602 - Output spool arguments can have spaces.  In addition, the output spool can be augmented with &CLASS (the output class), &WRITER (the SYSOUT writer), &FORM (the SYSOUT form) along with PARMLIB arguments.

Features introduced and issues resolved in v19.5.27:

• Ticket#12529 - IDCAMS DEFINE AIX and and DEFINE PATH create database view definitions on the underlying table (with ordering) so that AIX and PATH names can be opened by a COBOL program directly without referencing the CLUSTER name.
• Ticket#12546 - Canceled jobs release cross-node locks.
• Ticket#12560 - Eliminate accidental DCB deletion during concurrent EBP job execution.
• Ticket#12561 - EBP lock web service displays lock status of a single-node EBP-Plex. Canceled jobs release cross-node locks.
• Ticket#12574 - EBP IDCAMS DEFINE PATH implemented as alias for alternate index.

Features introduced in v19.5.16:

• Ticket#12563 - JCS Standard Label configuration extended to allow SYSOUT classes using config web service "DLBL." field to set label name and value of SYSOUT class A-Z, 0-9 or "*" meaning append to message dataset. 
• JCS ER - "* $$ JOB" card extended to support JCL-like MSGCLASS and MSGLEVEL options.  Use MSGLEVEL=(4,4) to include more information on dataset allocation and program execution

Features introduced in v19.5.8:

• Ticket#12524 - JCL refer-back feature of DD DCB parameter now accepted (e.g., DCB=*.STEPNAME.DDNAME)
• Ticket#12538 - EBP VSE JCS initiator failed with NPE when job steps contain inconsistent DLBL assignments.

Features introduced in v19.4.29:

• Ticket#12513 - EBP VSE JCS handling of default DCB information, specifically for SYNCSORT-created files.

Features introduced in v19.4.17:

• CA Dynam/D - Dynam/D symbolic replacement introduced.  "==@" in a dataset name in VSE JCS is replaced by partition name and CPU number. "##" in a dataset name in VSE JCS is replaced by increasing sequential characters.  See EBP Configuration (PARMLIB dynampartition) for more info.
• JCS IF/THEN/GOTO - JCS conditional execution and GOTO /. label statements added.

Features introduced in v19.3.25:

• Ticket#3591 - Add DEFINE / DELETE parameters common in VSE IDCAMS input statements
• Ticket#3592 - Make "extraneous input" type syntax errors within input to standard utilities more apparent

Features introduced in v19.3.19:

• Ticket#3502 - SYNCSORT output file retains DD card DCB parameters
• Backup Service - backup/restore of both configuration settings (e.g., datalib) and state (job classes, jobs, output datasets)
• Config Service - ability to Choose File for .dcb property files and then Load them into the EBP configuration in which case .dcb files need not be present in the datalib0..9 configured directories.

Features introduced in v19.2.19:

• Ticket - JOB card CLASS keyword now recognized on continuation cards.
• Ticket#3548 - DCB information for a dataset may be contained in the deploy.properties contained in the current working directory, jar for EBP step execution or war or ear files for an application or ETP region.  This avoids having to deploy .dcb files with a self-contained application or region.  Also allows setting of global DCB information via the config Web service.
• Ticket#3512 - EBP supports to "Model DCB" concept of a DD statement's DCB parameter.  Model DCB specification is checked for syntax and ignored.  Other DCB options within the DCB clause following the model DCB are applied to the data definition.

Features introduced in v19.2.6:

• Ticket#3541 - JOBLIB concatenation problem resolved
• Immediate Files - Empty lines were lost while saving immediate files; syntax errors were sometimes generated as a result from various utilities
• IDCAMS - DEFINE CLUSTER on VDB protocol changed such that multi-part dataset names such as,
     DEFINE CLUSTER NAME(A.B.C) ...
  will create a database table named a_b_c if the database A and schema (user) B do not exist.  If database A and schema (user) B do exist, then table c is created.

Features introduced in v19.2.1:

• VSE JCS - VSE JCS Librarian function "+INC" is implemented for "immediate" file data include into the DDNAME STDIN when processing JCS batch jobs.  The argument to +INC can be a dataset name (physical sequential) or dataset name and member name (in parentheses or as an additional "dot" component) and is expected to be included from one of the configured EBP datalib1..9 settings.  "Immediate" data follows the EXEC statement in JCS and is terminated by "/*" or the start of another JCS statement (intervening comments are included in the input stream) and are treated like an "immediate" dataset in JCL (//MYDD DD *) attached to the standard input file (COBOL ACCEPT statement or FD for STDIN accessed with the READ STDIN statement).

Issues resolved in v19.1.17:

• VSE JCS - arbitrary (spacey) file-id names supported for SD files, end-of-data and end-of-job indicators expanded.
• Ticket#3504 - VSE JCS DD EXTENT cards with track info implies DISP=NEW clause for SD DLBL cards.

Issues resolved in v18.12.8:

• Ticket#3460 - DCB=PROTO=IBMV interprets RDW correctly. EXEC PGM=name search changed on Windows to prefer program (.exe) over executable jar (.jar) names.

Issues resolved in v18.11.29:

• Elastic IMS-DB - DBDGEN and PSBGEN utilities updated with new keywords, continuation cards.  
  Note: Requires Elastic COBOL and Elastic Transaction Platform runtime libraries v18.11.29 or later.

Issues resolved in v18.6.22:

• Ticket#3233 - The order and way in which EBP looks up Java jar-based programs during step execution has changed.  When "//STEPNAME EXEC PGM=JOB_A" is executed, first jars or directories containing class files from the current STEPLIB DDs and then JOBLIB DDs (each may be concatenated datasets, i.e. PDS directories or jar files) are examined, then directory searches from the systemlibn configuration setting and finally the classlibn configurations. Directory search operations look for jars that match the program name following COBOL and PL/I rules of program-to-class mapping (e.g., for the above example path names ending in JOB_A.jar, job_a.jar, joba.jar, JobA.jar are all candidates).  Jars that match by name undergo an examination differently whether they were created as "executable jars" (contain a META-INF/MANIFEST.MF file containing a "Main-Class:" attribute) or "regular jars" (without a manifest).  If a manifest exists the "Main-Class" is executed in the job step regardless of whether that class matches the PGM= program name.  When manifests are absent or the "Main-Class" attribute is missing from it, a search of the program name alternatives (e.g., JOB_A.class, job_a.class, joba.class, JobA.class) is made within the jar.  Any Java package names contained in the systemlibn configurations are prepended to the class file for that search.  If the class name is found that class will be executed as part of the JCL job step.  All programs are initiated with the "java -cp" flavor of the Java command and not the "java -jar" version.  This allows JOBLIB, STEPLIB and classlibn directories and jars to be added to the class path as well as the executable jar file.  See https://support.heirloom.cc/hc/en-us/articles/212578626-Elastic-Batch-Platform#programloading for more information.
• Ticket#3152 - ER - Limited support for JES2 Commands /*$commandverb,operand[,operand] specifically  /*$VS,'F any which spools to the internal reader.
• Ticket - The IKJEFT01 family of utilities can invoke PL/I programs with the RUN(program-name) directive where program-name follows the PL/I procedure-to-Java class naming conventions of epli.  If RUN(JOB_A) is used, for example, a joba.jar, JOBA.JAR, job_a.jar or JobA.jar executable jar containing JobA class will be loaded from the systemlib1..9 configured libraries (or JOBLIB or STEPLIB DD PDSes) or JobA.class will be loaded from classlib1..9 configured libraries (or JOBLIB or STEPLIB DD PDSes). 

New features added in v18.6.7:

• ER Elastic PL/I Support - EBP can submit and run JCL batch jobs that include EXEC steps referencing applications built by Heirloom Computing Elastic PL/I compiler and IDE.  EXEC PGM=NAME will match camel-case Java class names produced by epli.  Dataset mapping through DD cards to PL/I RECORD and STREAM FILEs are supported.  Compatible with jobs that mix with Elastic COBOL applications.
• ER HCEPLI JCL Proc - EBP includes a built-in JCL PROC HCEPLI, acting like the existing HCECOBOL JCL PROC, supports compile, load and go support for Heirloom Computing Elastic PL/I applications. See EBP / JCL Integration with Elastic PL/I in the Elastic Batch Platform (JES/JCL) manual.

Issues resolved in v18.5.31:

• Ticket#3182 - Future GDG generation specification corrected within cataloged procedures.
• Ticket#3149 - Allow symbolics to be used to specify generation data group generations.
• Ticket#3151 - Ensure generation data group generation numbers are used consistently throughout a job
• ER - Allow symbolic parameters to be supplied by a scheduler (e.g., Elastic Scheduling Platform, Control M, Tivoli workload manager) or other systems which issue the SUBMIT web service to EBP. Also, EBP operation page (index.html) allows up to three symbolics to be specified.
• ER - HCI Exclusive - Allow jobs to be submitted from JCL through the internal reader to have symbolics passed to the SUBMIT service -- parameters on the EXEC initiating the copy to INTRDR (e.g., PGM=IEBGENER, IDCAMS or IEBCOPY) are used as submit symbolics.

Issues resolved in v18.5.2:

• Ticket#3102 - Empty account items on the job card are allowed, comment cards between continuation JCL cards are allowed, large cataloged procedures are allowed, cataloged PROCs may have extensions .JCL, .PRC or no extension.
• Drag 'n' Drop Submit - From the Eclipse IDE with the Heirloom products' plug-ins, you can drag a JCL file to the EBP Server window to submit the job.  Requires Eclipse Check For Updates menu to update Elastic COBOL or Elastic PL/I to the latest version.
• License Directory Environment Variable - EBP expects a license file (licensing.properties, elasticcobol.properties) to be in the home directory of the user running it (e.g., tomcat8).  You can alter that location by setting the environment variable ebppropdir to the directory holding that file before starting EBP.

Features introduced with v18.1.23:

• Demo Mode - Elastic Batch Platform will enter a demonstration mode if no valid license is installed.  EBP is pre-configured with a single Job Class (A) and an Initiator for that class.  Other job classes and initiators are restricted from being configured as is EBP-Plex mode (multi-node scaling) and interaction with the Elastic Scheduling Platform (ESP).  Web Services Define/Undefine/Start/Stop are restricted. Job state (input, output spools) are not saved between EBP restarts.  All other EBP features and functions are supported without restriction.

Issues resolved in v17.12.15:

• Ticket#2984 - Example RAC configuration settings changed from "my-domain.com" to "example.com" to conform with Apache Directory Studio examples.
• Ticket#2997 - CHARSET added to DD card parameters and DCB parameters (e.g., //A DD CHARSET=IBM1237 or //A DD DCB=(LRECL=80,CHARSET=IBM1237) ) as well as IDCAMS DEFINE CLUSTER command (e.g., DEFINE CLUSTER (NAME(A.DAT) CHARSET(IBM1237)) ).  IBM JCL CCSID also supported (e.g., //A DD CCSID=1237). Settings affect the charset attribute of the Data Control Block (DCB) info for the file.

Issues resolved in v17.11.23:

• Ticket#2937 - OUTPUT cards allowed before EXEC.
• Ticket#2939 - FLASH keyword for 3800 printer support fully supported; OUTPUT specification on DD cards corrected.
• Ticket#2942 - JES2 control cards checked for syntax and largely ignored; cards /*ROUTE, /*MESSAGE implemented.
• Ticket#2943 - MSGLEVEL synced with JES2 definitions.
• Ticket#2948 - PROC card parameter substitution problem resolved.
• Ticket#2950 - Unicode characters supported in JCL decks
• Ticket#2959 - DSN parts made up of numbers
• Ticket#2972..2975 - VSE JCS job classes accept RESET, OPTIONS, USPI cards
• Ticket#2978 - VSE JCS jobs accept EXTENT card pools

Features introduced with v17.9.15:

• ER - EBP console messages optionally sent to an output spooler (e.g, log4j, file, printer, etc.)
• ESP - Corrected a condition with downloading recurring jobs from the Elastic Scheduler Platform

Issues resolved in v17.6.26:

• Ticket#2878 - COND specification on PROC steps properly merged with those on JOB steps

Issues resolved in v17.5.19:

• Ticket#2848 - JOB card positional parameters are optional
• Ticket#2849 - System utilities ignore line sequence numbers for input cards

Issues resolved in v17.4.23:

• Ticket#2830 - quoted keyword parameter values allowed

Issues resolved in v17.2.14:

• Config - Changes to configuration applied immediately

Issues resolved in v16.11.17:

• IDCAMS - Improved VDB (VSAM Transparency Mode for record-at-a-time file access), including COBOL-compatible "split key" support in the DEFINE statement
• Nested IFs - Fix for deeply nested JCL IF statements

Issues resolved in v16.8.17:

• EBP-Plex -  Deadlock removed during checkpoint / restart activity in a multi-node EBP clustered environment
• LOCK Web Service - LIST operation will display all locks held by a node or across an EBP-Plex

Issues resolved in v16.8.4:

• Ticket#2680 - PROC card can have comments in columns 72-80
• Elastic IMS DB - EBP IMS DB compatible with ETP operations as well

Features introduced with v16.7.27:

• EBP-Plex - Job name locking issue resolved
• JCL - BUFNO=(n) support

Features introduced with v16.7.17:

• Elastic IMS DB - Introduction of Elastic IMS DB support.  Note:  Requires upgrade of Elastic COBOL to v16.7.17 or higher.

Issues resolved in v16.6.23:

• Ticket#2636 - COBOL applications with prefixes on ASSIGN TO clauses (e.g. UT-S-MYDD) are mapped to correct DD name within EBP (e.g., MYDD)
• Ticket#2631 - Testing RC within PROCs; Job-level COND testing of PROC steps as a whole
• Ticket#2622 - SyncSort control cards now allowed in in-line and cataloged PROCs
• Ticket#2623 - RESTART at specific step name
  

Features added in v16.6.8:

• IDE - Eclipse Elastic COBOL plug-in support to display and submit JCL to EBP
• SPACE - Adjusted SPACE calculation by UNIT, see Tape Handling and Unit Specification

Features added in v16.4.28:

• RAC - Ability to build custom resource access control modules via the IRAC Interface

Features added in v16.3.29:

• US811 - IBM JES2 v2r2 (August, 2015) compatible job class names supported (not just letters and digits) for JCL CLASS parameters and EBP Web Services.

Features added in v16.3.17:

• US811 - Job Execution Control as defined in IBM JES/JCL V2R2 (released August, 2015) allowing scheduling of jobs with the following JCL cards:
• // SCHEDULE WITH=another-job
• // SCHEDULE HOLDUNTL=+hh:mm | (hh:mm,mm/dd/yyyy) | (hh:mm,ddd/yyyy)
• // SCHEDULE STARTBY=+hh:mm | (hh:mm,mm/dd/yyyy) | (hh:mm,ddd/yyyy)
• // SCHEDULE JOBGROUP=jobgroup

where JOBGROUPs are defined by submitting a job of type JEC associating many jobs.  A job class of type JEC previously defined and an initiator of that class started.  Example (from IBM JES/JCL Reference V2R2):,

 

Issues resolved in v16.2.15:

• Ticket#2541 - Allow EBP to work with older JVMs; IDCAMS DEF IDX for Windows

Features added in v16.1.23:

• DSNTYPE - JCL DD statement parameter allowing specification of PIPE, allowing piping of datasets from one job to another.

• VDB File Format - VDB file protocol (VSAM transparency mode, records as BLOBs in database tables) supported, PROTOCOL=VDB for DD DCB and IDCAMS.  MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2, Oracle supported for KSDS, RRDS and ESDS compatibility. IDCAMS REPRO REUSE / REPLACE keywords verified on all file formats.

Features added in v15.11.20:

• VSE JCS Jobs - Support added for IBM VSE JCS mode JCL: define JCS-type job classes, explicit submit of JCS or JCL dialect.
• SCRIPT Jobs - Support added for arbitrary scripting for sh, bash, csh, ksh, rexx: define SCRIPT-type job classes, explicit submit of SCRIPT or PYTHON dialect, shellcommand configuration.

Features added in v15.11.5:

• Ticket#2512 - Correct syntax error when multiple symbolics are used in keyword parameters.
• DD SYSOUT - other parameters (e.g., DCB) are allowed with the SYSOUT parameter
• RAC - correction to cached authenticated users

Features added in v15.10.28:

• Ticket#2509 - Use DD keyword DCB=PROTOCOL=VSQL to indicate VSAM-to-SQL bridge references to files, DSN=a.b.c.d.e must match the property VSQL.a.b.c.d.e contained within the data.properties file within the STEPLIB or JOBLIB or systempath1..9 jars from which the program is executed.  Similarly, deploy_settings file contains database connection information and references to the XML column mapping file also contained in the jar for each VSAM file that is mapped.  See https://heirloomcomputing.zendesk.com/entries/23396577-Using-the-VSAM-SQL-Data-Bridge for more information.

Features added in v15.9.17:

• INCLUDE - support for the INCLUDE card in JCL whose MEMBER keyword indicates a member (i.e., file) within a PDS (i.e., directory) that is to be included in the current step (e.g., DD cards) or add additional steps (EXEC cards and their DD cards) at that point in the job.  Group INCLUDEs also supported
• Ticket#2488 - support for PROC-less PROCs, cataloged procedures that do not start with a PROC card.  PROCs are pulled from the JCLLIB specified within the job or from the jcllib1..9 configured directories.
• Ticket#2493 - respect autocommit, isolation and implicit SQL properties in the IKJEFT.properties file for IKJEFTxx programs
• Ticket#2495 - when authorizing resources without authenticating users, allow searching LDAP for user's groups with rac.userbase and rac.usersearch
• Ticket#2485 - exception on concatenated DD cards
• Ticket#2486 - multi-line IF statements, added support for IF stepname.ABEND testing

Features released and problems resolved in v15.8.28:

• RAC - case insensitive checking of user ids and resource names
• Wildfly (JBOSS) form of JAAS credentials supported in RAC
• Resource Groups introduced in Resource Access Control.  Resource groups may be defined in the LDAP directory that contain both resources and groups that have access to them, creating a M:N relationship between the two.
• Ticket#2476 (RAC) UNIT keyword of DD statement accepts a UNIT=(unit-name) and UNIT=(unit-name,unit-count) in addition to UNIT=unit-name and UNIT=AFF=unit-affinity.  The unit-count is ignored, but the unit-name can be used to designate a dataset mapping to configured datadir.0..9 paths that include the name in the path.  See documentation for more info on dataset mapping.

Features added in v15.6.5:

• Resource Access Control (RAC) is introduced leveraging Java Authentication, Authorization Service (JAAS), Java Naming Directory Interface (JNDI) and Lightwight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) together with J2EE Application Servers (Websphere, Weblogic, JBOSS, Glassfish) or JEE Servlet Engine (Tomcat, Jetty) to provide mainframe compatible authentication and authorization.  See the Integrated Security section in the Elastic Batch Platform overview article and the RAC: Operating EBP and ETP in a Secure Environment detailed article.

Features added in v15.5.22:

• ER: Integrated Security is introduced
• ER: BPXBATCH standard utility for invoking a shell script is introduced

Problems resolved in v15.4.30:

• Ticket#2424:Verified IDCAMS DEFINE CLUSTER record and keylength settings can be read by COBOL applications with the same attributes
  
• Ticket#2426: Resolve IDCAMS REPRO blocking/deblocking issue which cause input/output records and bytes to differ
• Ticket#2421: Output queue elements restored after server stop/start
• Ticket#2426: VSAM-to-VSAM REPRO record count corrected
• Ticket#2420: Record blocking with DCB overrides on DD card
• Ticket: System Operators Console updates for HTML5.
• ER: Allow initiator changes while system is quiesced
• ER: Define output spooler classes A-Z referenced in OUTPUT statements, MSGCLASS and SYSOUT parameters that (1) hold (default), (2) none (spooled output is thrown away), (3) lpr (sent to Linux defined line printer, (4) log (sent to defined Java log4j logs), or (5) arbitrary spooler programs (e.g., LRS)
• ER: Change EBP configuration properties from jes.xxx to ebp.xxx; deployment package from jes.war to ebp.war; deployment context from /jes to /ebp
• ER:Provide EBP XML Schema for all REST Web services

EBP is included in every Heirloom subscription and is available when you start your cloud instances. Sign up at paas.heirloomcomputing.com to run the JES/JCL engine in cloud. Or, contact us to run EBP on-site with your Elastic COBOL subscription.  Use your existing license file or deploy the new one you receive at one of the following locations.

Your EBP server must have access to paas.heirloomcomputing.com to verify the license file when it starts up.  Or, follow the "Proxy License Validation" procedures described under "Licensing as a Service" on this forum.

EBP also runs on private clouds and local Windows, Linux, and UNIX servers.  

Download

Download EBP from the following link