New Features in Enterprise Server 9.0

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Micro Focus has released a new video-based training course in COBOL, Micro Focus™ COBOL Fundamentals Course. The course teaches the fundamentals of the COBOL language, introduces the Micro Focus™ COBOL syntax, and usage of Micro Focus COBOL tools.

The course is ideal for developers familiar with C, Java, or .NET who want to learn COBOL. It doesn't matter what language you know, as long as you have experience of standard programming concepts, this course is for you.

A new Learn Micro Focus™ COBOL Extension for Visual Studio Code is available. The extension comes with the training materials for the COBOL training course. For information about the COBOL course, and the Learn Micro Focus™ COBOL Extension for Visual Studio Code, visit www.cobol.com.

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The following features are now available in the Micro Focus™ Enterprise Extension for Visual Studio Code when you use it with Enterprise Developer 9.0:

• A PL/I Language Server is available. This enables the following advanced features in the PL/I editor - Find All References, Peek, Outline view, collapsible regions, Rename, Navigate To, background error reporting, variable highlights.
• A new button, , Debug PL/I Program or Run PL/I Program in the top right corner of the editor, is present for the current PL/I program.
• You can now specify the PL/I main file context for include files if an include copybooks is referenced in more than one program.

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The following features are now available in the Micro Focus™ COBOL Extension for Visual Studio Code when you use it with Enterprise Developer 9.0:

• JVM COBOL debugging
• COBOL notebooks where you can have text and executable blocks of COBOL code in the same file.
• Colorization for COBOL directives files, cobol.dir.
• A new button, , Debug COBOL Program or Run COBOL Program in the top right corner of the editor, present for the current COBOL program.
• Configuration setting for custom tab stops.
• A Micro Focus COBOL terminal in the TERMINAL pane.
• You can now specify the COBOL main file context for copybooks if a copybooks is referenced in more than one program.

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This release provides the following enhancements:

• Better control of permissions granted on newly created tables.

  When creating a table, the SQL Server interface also creates an index, and grants loose permissions to everyone via the A-MSSQL-GRANT-PERMISSIONS and A-MSSQL-GRANT-USERNAME configuration variables with their default values. If database permissions are not set to allow these loose permissions, the GRANT statement fails, causing OPEN OUTPUT to fail.

  See A-MSSQL-GRANT-PERMISSIONS and A-MSSQL-GRANT-USERNAME for details.

• Increased table and column name sizes for ODBC

  To accommodate the number of characters the ODBC driver allows, this release increases the allowable table name and column name sizes for ODBC via two new ODBC configuration file variables. For details, see A_ODBC_MAX_COLUMNNAME_LEN and A_ODBC_MAX_TABLENAME_LEN.

• Support for all currently available versions of the MIcrosoft SQL Server ODBC Driver, which have been tested through version 18.

  See the following Configuration Variables topics for details:

  • A_MSSQL_ODBC_DRIVER_NAME
  • A_MSSQL_ENCRYPT_CONNECTION
  • A_MSSQL_TRUST_SERVER_CERTIFICATE
  • A_MSSQL_EXTRA_CONNECTION_INFO
• The A_MSSQL_IDENTITY_TYPE configuration variable has been added to enable you to configure the identity column to be a larger type, and to store a 64-bit value internally. Set A_MSSQL_IDENTITY_TYPE to a string value that represents a fully qualified data type for your database. The default is:

   A_MSSQL_IDENTITY_TYPE="numeric(9,0)"

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This release provides the following enhancements:

• A new casverify command-line utility is available. This utility enables you to verify the configuration of a specified enterprise server region without attempting to start it, and also enables you to create immediate diagnostics information in JSON or human-readable output. Verification stages are modular, enabling you to specify which validation checks to run.
• You can now list job steps to enable users to perform advanced restarts. Job steps can be output to JSON by specifying casout /%jnumber or output to a table by specifying casout /%tnumber. See casout for more information.
• Installation improvements on UNIX - when upgrading from releases 6.0, 7.0, or 8.0 on UNIX, Enterprise Developer now preserves more configuration details. During the installation of the product, a set of configuration files are moved to a config location before the upgrade occurs. These are linked back to the product install location on completion. When you reinstall the full product, install a patch update, or install an upgrade to the same location, the previous configurations settings are maintained.

  Previously, the upgrade process required manual intervention to redeploy existing configuration settings. This now occurs automatically.

• Enterprise Developer CICS now supports the MAPPINGDEV option of SEND MAP and RECEIVE MAP commands.
• Application diagnostic reporting now enables you to collect JCL process failures. See Application Diagnostic Reporting for Enterprise Server for more information.

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Enhancements are available in the following areas:

• Accessibility improvements - provide improved compliance with 508 and WCAG 2.1 standards.
• API, version 2 extensions - includes updated versions of some of the existing API version 1 endpoints, and has been extended to contain more endpoints.
• Merged Archived Spool - you can now configure an enterprise server region to view a merged archived spool in the UI. You can view multiple archived spools from a single region, and view old spool information for multiple jobs that have ran under a previous name
• Page search facility - you can now search for a page that contains a specified search string. This enhancement is part of the WCAG 2.1 requirements for accessibility.
• PAC clients - the ESCWA UI lists all TN3270 clients connected to a PAC. This enables you to administer and monitor clients across the entire PAC from a single PAC region.
• TLS-enabled Redis connections. ESCWA now supports administering and monitoring PACs with a TLS Redis SOR.

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This release provides the following new features and enhancements:

• Demo CA - the component has been completely redesigned and is now included as part of Enterprise Developer. Demo CA supports multiple installations, uses up-to-date cryptographic support, and generates modern version 3 certificates with SANS, PKIDs, AKIDs, etc. signed by an intermediate CA. Demo CA is now easier to use and has improved interoperability with third-party SSL/TLS systems.
  Note: Micro Focus strongly recommends that Demo CA is only used for SSL/TLS development and testing and is not intended for use in a production environment.
• esfupdate support for the Vault Facility - the esfupdate utility now supports the use of the Vault Facility for credentials it needs to connect to MFDS.
• OpenSSL 3.0 - OpenSSL has been updated to use the current Long Term Supported OpenSSL cryptographic library.
• VSAM External Security Manager (EAP) - the VSAM ESM Module is a new option for Enterprise Server security which is simpler and more convenient than using LDAP-based security. The VSAM ESM Module provides a security manager for Enterprise Server which keeps security data in COBOL data (VSAM) files. It provides many of the features of the MLDAP ESM Module but does not require an LDAP server or other third-party solution. Security data can be imported from a YAML file, facilitating the securing of Enterprise Server and the modification of its security data.
  Attention: This feature is in Early Adopter Program (EAP) release status. We intend to provide the finalized feature in a future release. Please contact Micro Focus Customer Care if you require further clarification.

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This release includes the following new features for IMS:

• A new environment variable, ES_IMS_DISPLAY_NEW, has been added to enable the new z/OS /DISPLAY timestamp output format.
• APARM handling has been updated to use EBCDIC APARMs obtained from EBCDIC applications. In addition, the APARM positional parameter for DLI has been changed from 19 to 20 to be consistent with the IBM IMS documentation. The APARM positional parameter for BMP applications remains at 19. [4]
• The ES_IMS_APARM_DLI environment variable has been added to enable the APARM handing behavior of previous releases. See ES_IMS_APARM_DLI for details. [4]

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• In this release the security around running programs from JCL jobs has been enhanced to enable you to limit:
  • The location of the programs to load
  • Permission to run particular programs based on user ID

  This release writes several additional messages to the job log as a JCL job runs, including the location from which each program is loaded. For example:

  JCLCM0303I Program IDCAMS (MFJAMS) loaded from library
  SYS1.LOADLIB

  When running one of your own programs, you might see messages such as:

  JCLCM0305I Failed to find program JCLREAD in private libraries
  and SYS1.LNKLIB.
  JCLCM0306I Number of SYS1.LNKLIB entries: 0.
  JCLCM0303I Program JCLREAD loaded from library SYS2.LOADLIB.

  Combined, these three messages indicate that the program was not found in the main program search path (SYS1.LNKLIB) but has been loaded from the JES Program Path (SYS2.LOADLIB).

  For more information about increased JCL security checks including a configuration example, see JCL Enhanced Security Checks. For information about suppressing security check messages in the job log, see ES_JES_HIGHER_SECURITY_LEVEL.

• The MF_SPLJNO_LOCK environment variable has been added. Using this variable, you can change the process by which the JES engine accesses the job number of a JCL submission to enable enqueuing, which can increase throughput, reduce latency, and reduce disk/file access. For details, see MF_SPLJNO_LOCK. [4]

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This release includes enhancements in the following areas:

Open PL/I Run-Time System:

The following enhancements are available:

• Support for more than 2GB of static data in a single procedure.
• Support for placing uninitialized static data in the .BSS section.
• JSONPUTMEMBER now supports quotation marks within its input.
• Support for the XMLCONTENT attribute.
• The PL/I Run-Time System optionally provides the ability for ERROR to be driven in place of STRINGRANGE and SUBSCRIPTRANGE.
• PLIDUMP display of the offset within prologue code a signal is received within the prologue of a PL/I procedure.
• Support for FIXEDOVERFLOW condition.
• Support for FOFLONASGN, FOFLONDIV, FOFLONMULT, FORCEODD Fixed Decimal Behaviors.
• Support for validation of FIXED DECIMAL data.
• The speed for FIXED DECIMAL operations has been improved.
• The stability of CICS API calls on 64 Bit Solaris (SPARC) has been improved.

Product Help:

• The product Help includes a new section on Open PL/I Conditions.
• A new section, Open PL/I Problem Determination is available. Reference this section to learn how to mitigate execution, link, and debugger problems, how to use PLIDUMP to resolve issues, and also to learn about specific PL/I-related information pertaining to the use of the Consolidated Tracing Facility. This new documentation also includes a list of data items you need to collect before raising a PL/I problem with Micro Focus Customer Care.

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This release provides the following new features.

• Enterprise Developer and Enterprise Server now incorporate Host Access for the Cloud (HACloud) to provide 3270 emulation. HACloud is the leading Web-based emulator and requires no additional desktop installation. HACloud replaces the Rumba+ Desktop emulator previously supplied with Enterprise Developer. Customers that have Rumba+ Desktop entitlement can continue to use it within Rumba+ Desktop.
• In this release, Host Access for the Cloud supports session configuration options, as well as creating and using macros.

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This release provides the following enhancements and new features:

• Improvements have been made to the to the Common Communications Interface (CCI) tracing. CCI tracing can now be enabled using only the Consolidated Trace Facility (CTF) configuration, without needing to set trace options in CCI.INI or the environment as well. SSL/TLS trace points have been added to the CCI CTF trace, making it easier to control. It uses the same mechanism as other components such as the COBOL RTS. SSL/TLS tracing is now incorporated into CTF, placing all communications trace output in one place and adding timestamps and other useful information to these tracepoints. See Enabling CCI Tracing for more information.