What's new in 1.6.x

This information contains an overview of the major changes to Z Service Automation Suite 1.6.x, comparing to 1.5.x.

What's new in 1.6.1 (December 2023)

IBM Z® ChatOps 1.1.4
IBM Z ChatOps 1.1.4 includes the following new features and enhancements:
New Kafka event support
  • You can post any topic of any Apache Kafka (https://kafka.apache.org/ ) event to chat tool channels to notify that some incidents happen and need to be taken care of in a uniform format and looking.
  • You can also add your own filtering rules and mapping rules to customize what kind of inbound Kafka topics are posted to channels automatically.
New embedded chat window
  • You can embed the new platform and framework agnostic chat window into any web application by adding the <chat-window> element to enable chatops capability for your web application along with customizable conversational page driven capability, that is, your host page can be automatically switched and synchronized per your chatting topic with the chat bot.
  • All Z ChatOps capabilities are available in the embedded chat windows with enhanced workflow for operation authentication workflow.
  • Auto-registering, style theme (dark and light) and chatting message persistence are also provided together.
Miscellaneous enhancements
  • Security enhancement

    Z ChatOps data encryption is enhanced with more secure hash algorithm. You can also now run Z ChatOps container with more security options such as AllowPrivilegeEscalation, readOnlyRootFilesyste and Apparmor/SeLinux.

  • Start-up process enhancement

    Z ChatOps start-up process is enhanced with clearer steps and more application level event and exception.

For more information, see What's new in 1.1.4.

IBM® Service Management Unite 1.1.11
IBM Service Management Unite 1.1.11 provides the following enhancements:
Enhanced integration with IBM Z System Automation
Starting in V1.1.11.0, you can view your System Automation policy reports and refresh System Automation policies through IBM Service Management Unite. To do that, you must configure a list of policy databases first.
  • Support for viewing System Automation policy database reports

    A new Manage Z System Automation Policies dashboard allows you to choose the policy database and member / file name to view the detailed report. On the View SA Policy dashboard, you see all the groups, systems, applications, and application groups that are defined so far in the policy database. You can search and expand entries to drill down into details in the report.

  • Support for refreshing System Automation policies

    You can refresh a System Automation policy with the Refresh Policy Configuration operation through Service Management Unite.

Miscellaneous enhancements
  • You can now select which TEPS is used to query data with custom dashboards.
  • Updated the major prerequisite software of SMU container images: JazzSM to fix pack 20, and WAS to fix pack 24.
  • Added support for IPv6.
  • Added support for deleting SDF Captured Messages that are created by AOCUPDT command.
  • Improved the SMU WTOR message behavior.

For more information, see What's new in 1.1.11.

IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service 1.3.1
IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service 1.3.1 includes the following update:
IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service - JCL Discovery
IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service - JCL Discovery can scan and analyze the JCL file, transfer the analysis report to ZRD-DS Core, and merge with other information to generate a more detailed JCL report. The detailed JCL report can be transferred to other platforms, for example, ServiceNow.

For more information, see What's new in 1.3.1.

What's new in 1.6.0 (March 2023)

Z Common Data Provider 5.1.1 with Apache Kafka
Z Common Data Provider 5.1.1 with Apache Kafka is newly introduced to IBM Z Service Automation Suite 1.6.x. It enables the following integrations:
  • Stream IBM Z Workload Scheduler data and distribute it to a variety of analytics engines, such as Splunk, the Elastic Stack, or the Z Data Analytics platform included in IBM Z Operational Log and Data Analytics.
  • IBM Z System Automation can use the Kafka infrastructure to distribute System Display Facility (SDF) events to IBM Service Management Unite and other consumers.

For more information, see What's new in 5.1. Note that the Z Common Data Provider 5.1.1 with Apache Kafka includes the same new features as 5.1.

IBM Discovery Library Adapter for z/OS® 3.2.0
IBM Discovery Library Adapter for z/OS 3.2.0, formerly known as IBM Tivoli® z/OS Discovery Library Adapter 3.1.0, is newly introduced to IBM Z Service Automation Suite 1.6.0. It includes the following enhancements:
  • All z/OS DLA 3.1 APAR fixes are included.
  • A new option ENABLE_ZRDS is added to support IBM Z Resource Discovery Services to consume z/OS DLA discovered data.
  • DB2® DDF location information is enhanced.

For more information, see What's new in 3.2.0.

IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service 1.2.0
IBM Z Resource Discovery Data Service 1.2.0 is newly introduced to IBM Z Service Automation Suite 1.6.0. It integrates discovered IBM Z topology data into IBM Cloud Pak® for Watson™ AIOps, which enables events originating from OMEGAMON® monitoring or System Automation to be correlated with events from the hybrid cloud based on this topology. It includes the following enhancements:
  • Supports Kafka as a data store
  • Supports overall scan date by API
  • Exposes OrientDB configurations as docker environment
  • Supports API query for DDFLocation of DB2Subsystem
  • Adds name field to resource object MQBufferPool, IPInterface, ZSeriesComputerSystem
  • Fixes Network I/O errors when data is copied into OrientDB
  • Enhances the performance on zLinux
  • Upgrades open source dependencies to the latest version

For more information, see What's new in 1.2.0.

IBM Z ChatOps 1.1.3
IBM Z ChatOps 1.1.3 includes the following new features and enhancements:
Enhanced operation experience in chat tools
  • Intelligent response

    When you type commands without entering required options, Z ChatOps can now prompt you with the option you must enter next as a drop-down list or lists of resources that you can select. This further simplifies your command experience. This feature supports data from System Automation, OMEGAMON, and Z Workload Scheduler. See Using auto-prompt for required options for more information.

  • Command aliases

    You can now create aliases for your frequently used commands with as little as a single character. This allows you to create shortcuts for commands and improves your productivity by saving you a lot of time to type the same commands again and again. For example, you can set 1 as the alias for the workstation list status --en SAT1IWS command.

    To create an alias, you can modify the config/bnz-command-alias.yaml configuration file and then run bnzsvr restart. For more information, see Configuring aliases and Using command aliases.

  • Auto-reply in thread

    For Mattermost and Slack, all messages will be automatically shown in the main window unless you click "Reply in thread" to collapse your current talking. In this release, all the bot responses to mouse-clicking will be shown in a thread. This lets you drill down results in more detail without cluttering a channel or direct message. This mode is enabled by default.

    To enable or disable this mode for your chat platform, edit the corresponding chat platform configuration file in your config/chattools directory.

  • Default actions and objects

    You can now list the status of some actions without entering the list status command to improve operation efficiency. For example, @bnz system shows the status of all systems on all domains, which returns the same as you enter @bnz system list status.

Enhanced integration with other products
  • Enhanced incident views

    Added link to IBM Service Management Unite dashboard for incidents. With enhancements to the Common Incident Data Model, you can now get links to resources to view incident details from Service Management Unite.

  • Enhanced OMEGAMON detail views

    Added link to IBM Z Service Management Explorer (IZSME) workspace to help you view more detail about OMEGAMON resources. In previous releases, only links to Service Management Unite dashboard are provided. To get the link, ensure that IZSME is enabled in Service Management Unite. For more information, see Listing resource details of OMEGAMON.

  • Enhanced options for System Automation

    You can now execute command (start/stop/restart/cancel/suspend/resume) on specified automation resource with more options like comment and override in chat tools using commands or mouse navigation.

Miscellaneous enhancements
  • Container runs as non-root user

    In this release, IBM Z ChatOps container runs as non-root user zchatops to make the container more secure.

  • Mask secret info in log files

    In this release, all sensitive information related to password, token (bot and app tokens), signing secrets in log files are masked while bnzsvr service starts or when you issue commands in chat tools to avoid potential security pitfalls. This includes log files for Z ChatOps and Common Bot Framework.

  • Documentation enhancements
    • Added a new troubleshooting topic about enabling debug mode to help you collect more logs for troubleshooting purposes.
    • Updated the screen captures about configuring chat platforms.

For more information, see What's new in 1.1.3.

IBM Service Management Unite 1.1.10
IBM Service Management Unite 1.1.10 provides new integration with z/OS Workload Interaction Navigator and Z Operational Log and Data Analytics.

Starting in 1.1.10, IBM Service Management Unite is integrated with z/OS Workload Interaction Navigator and Z Operational Log and Data Analytics. You can launch the dashboards of these two products directly from Service Management Unite performance dashboards to view more detail. For Z Operational Log and Data Analytics, you can launch two types of dashboards: the Z Data Analytics platform dashboard that is included in Z Operational Log and Data Analytics or the Splunk platform where Z Operational Log and Data Analytics is deployed. For more information, see IBM Service Management Unite integration with z/OS Workload Interaction Navigator and IBM Service Management Unite integration with Z Operational Log and Data Analytics.

For more information, see What's new in 1.1.10.