Scope:
USA, Brazil and Canada based DXC data centers and supported client data centers.
Effective Date:
July 1st, 2025.
Group Name:
AMS Leveraged Mainframe CICS Support (USA, Brazil and Canada).
Affected Locations:
USA - Cherokee, Charlotte, Dallas (SYF), Maryville, Norwich, Mid-Atlantic, Mingo, One
America and Plano
Brazil - Sao Paulo
Canada - MCC, SCC and Calgary
Summary:
CICS Transaction Server 6.2 will be the next version of CICS Transaction Server to become
the standard software offering by DXC.
Justification:
The current standard offering by DXC of CICS Transaction Server, release 5.6, was released
in 2020, and reached EOM (withdrawn from market) by March 3rd 2025. EOS date was not
published yet.
Since then, IBM released CICS Transaction Server 6.2 with new and improved
functionalities.
Upgrading now will allow users to exploit new technologies and ensure continued software
currency and support.
Benefits to Users:
The following are some of the new release highlights:
• Developer experience
- Support for Java 17.
- Support for Jakarta Enterprise Edition.
- Enhanced container support.
- Support for Node.js 18.
- Support for Liberty collectives.
• System management:
– New DFHRL messages for GRPLIST installation of BUNDLE resources.
– Enhanced support for GRPLIST.
– Enhancements to CICS policies.
– Health check on stabilized functions.
– Resilience to surging requests for TRANCLASS-managed transactions.
– CICSPlex SM can now process type 71 ENF events for a CICSplex.
– CICS opens TCPIPSERVICE automatically after a TCP/IP restart.
– Integration of CICS and CICSPlex SM shutdowns.
– Monitoring use of CICSPlex SM Data Repository.
– Suppress SMF records with zero-counting fields.
– Updated CMCI JVM server requirements.
– Expanded Ansible IBM z/OS CICS collection to automate CICS resource and region actions.
– Operator for CICS integration with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.
• Security:
– Zero trust enhancements.
– TLS enhancements.
– New options on SIGNON, CHANGE PASSWORD, and CHANGE PHRASE reveal more sign-on
information.
– New options on XPPT allow you to secure remote programs at a lower cost.
– Command security checking removed for INQUIRE TERMINAL, INQUIRE NETNAME, and SET
TERMINAL when programs or tasks inquire on or set their own terminals.
– Enhancements to surrogate security for JCL job submissions to the JES internal reader.
– CICSPlex SM can now process type 71 ENF events for a CICSplex.
– Mandatory initialization parameters for WUI or SMSSJ if security is active.
– Monitoring and statistics fields to audit QUERY SECURITY LOGMESSAGE(NOLOG) requests.
– Updated WS-Security requirements.
• Performance:
– Read and browse requests to shared data tables are threadsafe
– CICSPlex SM can now process type 71 ENF events for a CICSplex
• Resilience:
– Enhanced SOS protection and monitoring of z/OS MEMLIMIT storage in the 64-bit addressing
range.
– Resilience to surging requests for TRANCLASS-managed transaction.
– Suppress SMF records with zero-counting fields.
– Sysplex caching for TLS 1.3 is supported.
– Enhanced exploitation of Instruction Execution Protection.
Details:
Affected sites should ensure that locally supported products are compatible with CICS
Transaction Server 6.2.
The timeline for implementation of Transaction Server 6.2 is 2Q 2025 through 3Q 2026.
6 CICS regions were upgraded to CICS Transaction Server 6.2 as part of ALPHA testing.
Where to find additional information:
A more in depth description of capabilities introduced by Transaction Server 6.x may be
obtained from the following IBM documents:
What's new
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cics-ts/6.x?topic=whats-new-in-cics-ts-62
All available documentation in PDF
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cics-ts/6.x?topic=available-documentation-in-pdf
Primary Contacts:
o USA and Brazil - Carla Munari +55 (11)99704-8220
o Canada - Larry McCulley +1 416-988-0669
CICS TS62 PROJECT TEAM:
o Carla Munari Commercial (Overall Project Lead)
o Sumit Joshi Commercial +91 (97408)-10600
o Robert Neill US Restricted +1 301-938-8834
o Briana Berry US Restricted +1 470-690-9764
|
Usercomm - CICS TS R6.2 Upgrade Information