Release 6.06

March 11, 2002

USS Action (beta product)>

Action Software International introduced a new product, USS Action with Change Action 6.05.

USS Action tracks changes and references to HFS (Hierarchical File System) files under the OS/390 and z/OS USS (UNIX System Services). It looks similar to Change Action, except that dataset and member are replaced by directory and file name.

The first phase of the product (6.05) included automatic tracking of changes, compare, reporting, and backup / restore of HFS files. The current release of USS Action 6.06, provides reference tracking functionality for HFS files.

Future phases will support change controls for HFS files in a z/OS or OS/390 USS systems environment. As well, Report and Selection Template support will be expanded.

USS Action is a separately chargeable product, available now as a beta release for testing by North American Change Action users, and is provided together with Change Action Version 6.06. Participants in the USS Action beta program will be expected to provide feedback regarding the results of their testing. Sites who participate in the beta testing will receive the following benefits:

the First Year License Fee will be waived (free) and
regardless of the List Price for the USS Action product, a base annual renewal fee of $2000 per site for the second and subsequent years which would not be increased by more than 10% in any year.

If you would like to participate in the beta test, please call Action Software International at (905) 470-7113 for more information.

Change Action CSA Usage

ENHANCEMENT: Prior to this release, when Change Action was restarted it would handle most of its CSA storage needs as follows:

Obtain a new area,
Asynchronously free an old area replaced by the new area.

This resulted in a short-term spike in CSA usage when Change Action was restarted.

As of Version 6.06, Change Action reuses existing CSA storage as much as possible, unless directed otherwise by a parameter on the START command.

"S MZCA,PARM=REFRESH"

will force Change Action to obtain new CSA storage when it is restarted. Please note that this parameter should NOT be specified on a routine basis. Use it only when directed to do so by Action Software International Technical Support.

Users of CSA monitoring software should be aware that the monitor will provide misleading information about Change Action's usage of CSA if Change Action is restarted. CSA storage obtained by one instance of Change Action and reused by a subsequent instance of Change Action will be reported by the CSA monitor as having been obtained by an address space that no longer exists. While this is technically true, in the case of Change Action it does not mean that the storage has been "orphaned".

Reference Tracking at the Data Set Level (RTDS)

If you have defined datasets using masking, then it is possible that some GDG's may meet the masking criteria. This can result in creation of unique Reference Stat records for every generation. This can potentially cause thousands of records to be created.

To avoid this problem, one Reference Stat record is created using the index, i.e. SYS3.ABC(0).

NOTE: Change Stats records are already created this way.

Automatic Scheduling

ENHANCEMENT: You may now select multiple individual hours during the day when you want the job to be submitted. Up to now, you could only select one individual hour or a time range. The time range remains unchanged where one submission will occur with in the window unless the REPEAT interval option is used. With multiple hours selected, the job will be submitted once in each hour selected.

Also now available is a Minute Range option which allows you to indicate at which minute passed the hour the job is to be submitted instead of just on the hour as it has been up until now. The minute is accompanied by a duration to make up a window of when the job can be submitted. The duration default is 30 minutes but can be up to 59 minutes. Once outside the duration time, if the job has not been run then the Reschedule option takes effect.

External Logging

ENHANCEMENT: The following new subtype has been added to External Logging. These records are also recorded in the Change Action database as audit records.

Subtype 0D: Updates to Global Parms (using Global Option P).
Subtype 0E: Updates to Global Dataset Options (using Global Option D).

Email from Change Action

ENHANCEMENT: An Email that contains formatted output will have a TXT file attached, e.g. Emails for changes to options. In the future an option will be available in Change Action Reporting to send reports by Email. The report will be in a TXT file.

• Back • Home • Up • Next •