New Features in COBOL Server 3.0

This release provides enhancements in the following areas:

Application Server JCA support for Enterprise Server

Restriction: This feature applies only when the Enterprise Server feature is enabled.

In this release, EJBGEN has been updated to generate an EAR file as a part of the COBOL deployment process, which enables you to deploy EJBs to Java Application Server.

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Data File Tools

This release provides the following enhancements to Data File Tools:

  • Opening files in shared mode - it is now possible to switch between read-only shared and edit modes. While a file is open in shared mode, others users can only open it in shared mode to ensure data consistency between users.
  • Enterprise Server-level of security when accessing files - there is an improved level of security when exchanging data between Data File Tools and the targeted enterprise server instance. Users must now provide a user ID, group and a password when they try to access and view datasets in enterprise server instances. These are used for authentication and authorization checks to provide the same access level as Enterprise Server.
  • Opening datasets using SSL - communication to a region is now possible using SSL. To enable the SSL communication, you need to provide a Java trust store which contains either a CA root certificate or a self-signed certificate of the region that it is communicating to. Java and the targeted region SSL configurations need to meet each other's standards in order for the communication to succeed.

    This feature enables you to secure the information exchange between Data File Tools and the targeted enterprise server.

  • Auditing of access and updates on datasets - Audit Manager now audits the access and updates on datasets via Data File Tools.
  • Support for existing .pro files - enables you to use your existing editor profiles.
  • Support for existing .str files - enables you to use your existing COBOL structure files.
  • Automatic timeout - if no internal operations or external actions (such as a mouse click) have been detected for 30 minutes, Data File Tools now displays a countdown message. If the user does not take any decision within the specified period, Data File Tools closes all opened files.

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Deployment on multiple platforms

This release provides support for deploying JVM COBOL applications on multiple platforms. You can compile an application on one platform (such as Windows) and then deploy its class files to a different platform (such as Linux or UNIX).

Some features of the COBOL language, however, are platform-specific and their behavior on different platforms might vary. See Multi-Platform Deployment of JVM COBOL Applications for details.

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Documentation

The following new sections have been added to the product help:

  • Where do I start? - located on the launch page of the product help, this section provides the information you need in order to get started depending on which aspects of the product you need to get to grips with first.
  • Multi-Platform Deployment of JVM COBOL Applications - includes information about how to ensure the portability of your JVM COBOL applications between Windows and UNIX or Linux platforms.

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Enterprise Server

Improvements are available in the following areas:

Long user IDs and passwords:

  • Enterprise Server now supports user IDs and passwords of up to 100 characters. It is possible to map IDs from long to short (or vice versa) to enable compatibility with programs that do not support long names.

SHA-256 support in DemoCA:

  • By default, the Demonstration Certificate Authority (CA) now signs certificates with SHA-256. This ensures that the demonstration or evaluation certificates will be accepted by modern browsers and other software that has enhanced security requirements.

Syslog auditing:

  • Enterprise Server now supports auditing using syslog events, which can be consumed by a wide range of Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) products. This replaces the Audit Manager auditing solution. Syslog auditing provides a much more efficient auditing mechanism, with significantly less impact on overall speed.

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iFileshare

iFileshare is no longer considered an Early Adopter Program, and contains the following enhancements in this release:
  • An improved failover and recovery process. iFileshare now supports full recovery of nodes in the group. For high availability (HA-VSAM) groups, servers can now rejoin the group without the entire group having to be restarted. In addition:
    • A primary failover now results in a takeover from the most suitable node.
    • If configured, external clients will automatically reconnect to the new primary and will issue a notification if the transaction has been lost.
    • A failed node, when restarted, will rejoin the group, recover its files and request a log update from the current primary. Once this task has completed it will be considered an active hot-standby and will continue to process replication requests as normal.
    • Users will experience a higher level of uptime/availability with their Fileshare configuration and will be able to recover from errors more easily.
  • A new exit procedure, ifsexitproc.cbl, can be configured to automate some aspects of iFileshare behavior.
  • The iFileshare Control page in ESMAC contains details of the current iFileshare high availability group.
  • The following new iFileshare-specific environment variables are available:
    • FSWRKDIR - enables you to specify the Fileshare working directory, overriding the default, which is the system directory of the region.
    • FSCHKLFH - determines if a check is performed when a high availability group is started, to test the consistency of the data files within the group.
  • The database reference file (dbase.ref) now supports wildcard matching for filenames, allowing you to perform operations on multiple files at once; for example: fs /d dbase.ref /f data\* adds the entire contents of the data directory to the database reference file.

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Parent topic: New Features
Related reference
Application Server JCA support
Data File Tools
iFileshare