Release Notes 6.5.1

This topic provides information about the new features and enhancements, bug fixes, and database changes that have been implemented in Automation Analytics & Intelligence 6.5.1 and higher:

Enhancements

General Improvements

This AAI version includes the following general improvements:

  • Improved the REST API calls for adding job definitions (/jobs and /v2/jobs) to help prevent sending an empty list of jobs to AAI inadvertently.

  • Added a runType field to the Universal Event /v2/events APIs to enable support of a new Run Type (SERVICE_PROCESS_RUN), which allows better handling of out-of-order events from a scheduler.

Web UI v2

This AAI version includes the following next generation Web UI enhancements for AAI users:

  • Editing Jobstream: Trimming

    Although jobs are identified as dependencies in a jobstream, they may not always influence the SLA of the target job, for example, jobs that run more or less frequently than the target job, jobs with different start times, jobs with no run frequency and so on.

    As of this version, you can use the Trimming function in the new Web UI which allows you to remove irrelevant jobs from the jobstream to make sure it only contains those that are relevant. The AutoTrim function allows you to automatically remove jobs from a jobstream based on the frequency of their execution. You can use it alone or in combination with manual trimming.

    For more information, see Adding/Editing Jobstreams: Trimming.

  • Jobstream Run Gantt Chart: Job Actions

    The jobstream run Gantt chart helps you understand why a jobstream is late or very late in relation to its SLA. To do so, you need to navigate the Gantt chart focusing on the jobs included in the critical path and their predecessors / successors, even jobs that do not run at all.

    As of this version, the new Web UI provides a number of job actions that you can take on the jobstream tree.

    For more information, see Job Actions on the Jobstream Tree.

Bug Fixes

This AAI version includes the bug fixes listed below:

General

  • Fixed an issue where an old Windows AAI executable file (.exe) was left behind after an upgrade to 6.5.0 hf1 after the product was renamed to Automation Analytics & Intelligence.

  • Unknown jobstream runs are filtered and discarded when the duration exceeds the average jobstream run duration plus two standard deviations (indicated by the jobStreamUnknownAverageDurationMultiplier parameter).

    To filter more aggressively, the value of this parameter has been decreased (as low as zero). To allow more Unknown jobstream runs to be surfaced, increase this value. All system parameters used to control this behavior are:

    • jobStreamUnknownAverageDurationEnabled (default=false)

      This feature filters Unknown jobstreams runs based on variations in their average duration.

    • jobStreamUnknownAverageDurationGuardEnabled (default=true)

      This flag determines whether the system will perform checks on the average duration of jobstreams, including termination or failure checks for Unknown job stream runs during filtering.

    • jobStreamUnknownAverageDurationMultiplier (default=2.0)

      This parameter regulates the deviation of Unknown job stream run duration from average job duration.

    • jobStreamUnknownStandardDurationPecentage (default=10.0)

      If the percentage value representing the standard deviation duration for an Unknown job stream is lower than the defined minimum percentage, the system will use the specified threshold value equal to (percentage * average job duration).

      Associated ticket: DE579047

Web UI v2

  • Fixed an issue with the New Predicted Duration field for job runs that prevented users from manually keying in a date in the date selection field for the Prediction Expires On entry.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented the date/time of a user-supplied Predicted Duration for a job from displaying properly on the Average Runs view.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented the More Actions (3 dots) on the Gantt Chart from properly displaying when a jobstream name was long.

  • Fixed an issue in the Create Jobstream option from More Actions of a Gantt view where changes to the Jobstream Name were not retained when navigating through the other Add New Jobstream tabs (for example, Start Jobs, Alert Criteria, and so on).

  • Fixed an issue that prevented a user from copying a job name in the new Web UI.

  • Resolved an issue with the Critical Path display in the Web UI Gantt chart which resulted in an incorrect order of job runs in a workflow.

    Associated ticket: DE582239

  • Fixed a Web UI issue that resulted in predecessor/successor lines being drawn from the end of a job to the start of its parent rather than lines being drawn correctly based on dependencies.

  • Fixed an issue in the Gantt view of a jobstream where the Go to Predecessor or Go to Successor options displayed start/end times for jobs marked as No Run as undefined.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented the job stream run history from being rebuilt to properly reflect newly added Start Job entries in the Web UI.

  • Fixed an issue where navigating from the Start Jobs panel to a different tab and back resulted in the selected jobs no longer being displayed.

  • Fixed an issue that prevented Start Jobs from successfully be removed from a jobstream via the Gantt view.

  • Fixed an issue with the Jobstream Runs - Grid view of the Web UI that prevent filtering by Scheduler.

ESP and Control-M Schedulers

  • Removed the setting of an outdated trigger (default-trigger.job-period-seconds) from the ESP and Control-M Web UI Add Scheduler processes to eliminate unexpected interval-based Job Definition updates.

    Note:

    This change will only apply to schedulers added after this software update.

    Associated ticket: DE575578

eEM

  • Solved an issue that prevented eEM users from adding or deleting a Jobstream in the Web UI v2. To enable them to do so, make sure to assign them the manageContents role in eEM.

    Associated ticket: DE577258

Database Schema Upgrade Summary from 6.5.0-1

The following new tables have been added:

 

Table Name Change Type Column(s) Affected
Report Add description

Mainframe Data Provider 2.1.0

With AAI 6.5.1, a new improved version of the Mainframe Data Provider for both CA7 and IWSz is available.

Performance and Overhead Reduction

This version primarily improves performance and reduces the CPU overhead of the Primary STC process. For this purpose, all data files required by AAI from both CA7 and IWSz are now generated directly into a USS directory.

To implement using a USS directory to generate the data that AAI requires, this version contains the following changes:

  • The USS target directory now requires a zFS volume to be mounted to that location that is specific for each instance of the CA7 Server for AAI/IWSz Server for AAI. For more information, see:

  • All modules have been changed to write data to or deliver data from the defined USS directory.

  • The ISPF IMS Allocate Execution Datasets panel has been changed to allocate only a zFS volume instead of the multiple Data Store datasets that were used in the previous release.

  • The ISPF IMS Server for AAI Settings panel changed to require specifying the USS directory to which the defined zFS volume will be mounted. Previously, this was required when using the SFTP delivery method and otherwise optional.

  • The ISPF IMS Update Instance panel has been changed to allow specifying a pre-existing zFS volume name. This can be used when upgrading from the previous version of the Mainframe Data Provider where a zFS volume had already been created and mounted for the SFTP file delivery mechanism.

Additional performance-related changes in this release include:

  • The IWSz Event file generation has been reworked to eliminate JTARCH dataset processing and the JTnn dataset copying that was done in the previous release.

  • The CA7 Event file generation has been reworked to improve WARM start recovery processing to minimize History log accesses.

New Option upon Installation

For both CA7 and IWSz a new option at installation time has been added to select the use of either SDSF or Sysview for accessing the CA7/IWSz Server for AAI instance log. The selected log access method is now used for the ISPF IMS Browse Log Menu option.

In the case of IWSz, the selected log access method is also used for the ERTA online display, as well as for the daily generation of the ERTA Extract data.

Expanded Size of the Password and Verify Fields

To eliminate issues with field truncation of the encrypted password value, various password fields have been modified to expand the size of the Password and Verify fields in the ISPF IMS.

The maximum password size has now been increased to 20 characters. Passwords longer than 20 characters may still result in truncation and FTP connection errors in both the CA7 and IWSz Servers for AAI instances, as well as in CCITERM errors specific to the CA7 Server for AAI

Calendar Definition File Generated as SCAL for the CA7 Server for AAI

For the CA7 Server for AAI, the Calendar definition data file is now generated as just SCAL. Previously, this data file was generated with a year suffix in the format SCALyy. However, it was found that multiple SCALyy files from previous years could cause issues in AAI processing. When the new SCAL data file is generated, any existing SCALyy data files will be deleted.

Host Key Automatically Added to List of Known Hosts

When connecting a Server for AAI system to a new AAI or IWS Connector server using SFTP, the server’s Host Key will automatically be added to the list of known hosts for the mainframe User ID.

ESP Connector 1.0.4

This version of the ESP Connector includes the following enhancements and bug fixes.

  • Upgraded Spring Boot to version 2.7.17 to resolve the following security vulnerability:

    • CVE-2023-46604 (ActiveMQ)

  • Upgraded the Connector framework to 6.5.0 to resolve the following security vulnerability:

    • CVE-2023-46604 (ActiveMQ)