Rapdie 2.0 will be retired on 1st June 2022. It is recommended that you plan to upgrade to Release 3.0 prior to this date.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Instead of posting cards, we are making a donation to our wonderful local hospice Dorothy House.

   

A remote-code execution vulnerability has been found in the Apache log4j logging library. 

This library is widely used in java applications and is used within the Rapide runtime. 

Rapide has been updated to include the latest 2.15.0 version of log4j and this is included in the following updated releases of the software which are now available to download:

• Rapide 3.0.2
  
• GuardIEn web client 8.8.0 (updated to show 8.8.0a in the home page)
  
• GuardIEn web client 8.7.5 (updated to show 8.7.5 in the home page)
  

New releases are available for Rapide:

• Rapide 2.0.1
  
• Rapide 3.0.1
  

The GuardIEn CSE->MVS build processes use FTP to transfer generated code & include files as well as submit jobs. 

The functions are developed in exits to enable customisation, and on the Windows platform, the sample exits use the standard Windows ftp.exe command line client. 

Increasingly customers are moving away from ftp to more secure versions like sftp, ftps or require features not offered by ftp.exe, for example passive mode.

One popular alternative to the windows command line utility is WinSCP. To make it easier for customers to use this instead of ftp.exe without needing to modify the exit source code, the sample exits (gdcsejcl, gdftpsrc and gdftpinc) have been amended to also support WinSCP, with the choice controlled by an environment variable.

These new exits will be available in Release 8.8.1, but should you have a need to replace ftp.exe before availability of 8.8.1, contact IET and we can send you the updated exit source code.

A recent thread in the Gen knowledgebase (High z/OS CPU utilisation for Gen action blocks generated with trace) highlighted a general problem with the performance of code generated with trace related to passing view data to the trace runtime. [/url]

[url=https://www.iet.uk/xTrace/index.html]xTrace has a feature that overcomes this performance penalty. If you are not actively tracing an action block, the code that moves the data to and from the trace runtime is bypassed. 

As a result, the performance overhead of running the application that has been generated with trace whilst you are not actively tracing is significantly reduced.

If you would like to know more about xTrace and how it can improve the tracing and testing of your Gen z/OS applications, please visit our web site or get in touch to discuss a free trial.

Release 8.8 of the IET DevOps Suite (includes GuardIEn and other products previously installed with GuardIEn) is now available.

Highlights of the new release are detailed below and full details are available in the Release Notes which can be downloaded from here: https://www.iet.uk/Download/RelNotes.htm

64 bit Windows Servers

• The Windows servers are now 64-bit.
  

• Release 8.7 introduced a new web service API for the CSE installations that allowed programmatic access to GuardIEn Change Requests, Release Pack and System Update functions. In this release, the range of APIs has been extended to provide an API for C, Java and .Net via standard CA Gen proxies. The GuardIEn API is a separate download that contains the proxy interfaces and web service WSDL.
  

• To accommodate longer passwords and passphrases, the length of the GuardIEn userid password, encyclopaedia connection password and encyclopaedia FTP password has been changed to 100 characters and spaces are now supported in the password.
  

• In previous releases, text searches that used a SQL LIKE (for example searching text or names in Object List+ or names in Deliverable List) automatically appended a trailing ‘%’ in the search string. This reduced flexibility in the searches, for example by not allowing a search for a specific end string. A trailing % is no longer appended to the search string if it already contains a ‘%’ or ‘&’, so if you want to search for a string that is in the middle of a value, you will need to add a trailing %, i.e. search for ‘%XXX%’ not ‘%XXX’
  

IET are pleased to announce the availabilty of the IET DevOps Suite.

IET DevOps Suite



To reflect the integrated nature of the IET products and the fact that multiple products are installed with GuardIEn (for example VerifIEr, pathvIEw, genIE and Object List+) plus the ability to integrate Studio Developer with other IET products, these products have been grouped together for installation purposes as the IET DevOps Suite where previously they were installed as part of GuardIEn.

DevOps Studio

The CA Gen Studio based plug-ins (Studio Developer and Studio GuardIEn) are now called DevOps Studio. 

The DevOps Studio clients are now installed as part of the IET DevOps Suite clients (previously the GuardIEn clients). The Eclipse based user interface provided in Studio offers a more productive and integrated user experience compared to the normal Windows GUI clients, especially when combined with Studio Developer. If the workstation has CA Gen Studio installed, all users of GuardIEn, VerifIEr, pathvIEw and other DevOps Suite products can (and are encouraged to) use the new Studio interface.

Release 8.7 Service Pack 5 is now available to download. You can view the release notes here: https://www.iet.uk/Download/RelNotes.htm

IET recommend that you install the service pack to obtain the latest fixes.

IET will be participating in the forthcoming CA Gen in DevOps Panel Interview hosted by the CA Edge Community and Broadcom on 9th June.

Please join us as we discuss CA Gen in the enterprise DevOps lifecycle. This will be a continuation of conversations started by Broadcom with their CA Gen DevOps paper, based on an internal proof of concept of integrating CA Gen and Endevor.

Hosted by Kim Peelman, Product Owner, CA Gen,  the panel will share further insights about CA Gen and DevOps and also have an open discussion with attendees on DevOps requirements and seeking feedbakc to help with the direction of future initiatives around DevOps support.

The panellists are:

• Darius Panahy: Director at IET with extensive experience enabling CA Gen customers to embrace DevOps using GuardIEn.
  
• Dillon Harguess: Architect and Engineer for CA Gen who contributed to the recent proof-of-concept demonstrating building a z/OS CICS Blockmode Application with CA Endevor and Zowe.
  
• Su Brude: Product Manager for CA Gen, guiding the vision to deliver value to customers.
  
• Vaughn Marshall: Broadcom’s Product Manager for CA Endevor, an enterprise solution for source code and release management for z/OS.