GA Announcement Dates for CA Ideal™ r11
July 27, 2007

• CA Ideal™ for CA Datacom® (z/OS)
• CA Ideal™ Option for VSAM (z/OS)
• CA Ideal™ Option for DB2 (z/OS)

August 24, 2007

• CA Ideal™ for CA Datacom® (z/VSE)
• CA Ideal™ Option for VSAM (z/VSE)
• CA IPC (z/VSE)

CA is pleased to announce General Availability (GA) for products in the CA Ideal r11 family.

This release delivers solutions for compatibility with CA Datacom/DB r11 including the following:

• Table Partitioning support - This feature allows you to split database tables into multiple physical partitions. Current applications continue to run with no impact on performance and no programming changes necessary. This provides additional operational flexibility by allowing the application programmer to access table data using:
  • The same (logical) table name
  • One or more individual physical data partition names
  • "ANY" available data partition (provides maximum flexibility in case other partitions are offline for system maintenance)
    
    
• Multi-MUF support - Current CA Ideal applications can access only one CA Datacom Multi-User Facility (MUF) at a time. This feature allows an application to access multiple MUFs from a single application. For example:
  • Applications that access data from multiple CA Datacom MUF environments are no longer required to have multiple applications to match each MUF. Database requests targeting multiple MUFs can be done from a single program.
  • Occasionally, a single CA Datacom environment is split into multiple environments. With Multi-MUF support, this change is made easily because no application changes are required to support the change to the underlying CA Datacom environment.

See the CA Ideal r11 Product Brief at this link.

For more information about CA Ideal, go to the product information page at this link.

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CA Datacom® r11 SP4 (11.4) Beta Program
CA is pleased to invite you to participate in the CA Datacom r11 SP4 Beta program. Your participation offers you the ability to validate CA Datacom/DB, CA Datacom Datadictionary, CA Datacom SQL, and CA Dataquery for CA Datacom in your own environment, allowing you to provide feedback regarding product enhancements, quality, and the Beta program process. Your contribution to this testing cycle is directly related to the success of the generally available (GA) release of CA products and ensures that we deliver solutions that are ready to meet your real-world requirements. As a participant in the Beta program, you communicate directly with the CA Datacom development team to investigate and address any reported problems, questions, or comments.

Key Features of this release are the following:

• Change Data Capture support
• XML Document Generator
• SQL "Light" Procedures
• Automatic Restart Manager support

For more information and to register for the CA Datacom r11 SP4 Beta program, go to this link.

For more information on CA's Enhanced Beta Programs and Participation Requirements, visit ca.com/betas.

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CA Datacom® Resource Analyzer Beta Program
CA is pleased to invite you to participate in the CA Datacom Resource Analyzer r11 Beta program. Your contribution to this testing cycle will contribute greatly to the success of the generally available (GA) release of CA products and ensures we deliver solutions that are ready to meet your requirements. As a participant in the Beta program, you communicate directly with the CA Datacom Resource Analyzer development team to investigate and address any reported problems, questions, or comments. CA Datacom Resource Analyzer improves performance for CA Ideal and COBOL business applications that access CA Datacom/DB data repository. Access methodologies measured by this product include SQL, Compound Boolean Selection (CBS), or Record-At-A-Time (RAAT). Through a hierarchical menu structure, CA Datacom Resource Analyzer will show application program activity, database definitions and source code statements that may be involved in potential performance problems.

As an end-user, function key-driven tool, CA Datacom Resource Analyzer can be used by programmers or database administrators, depending on the security level defined. It can be used in a test environment to validate application performance deficiencies or in a production environment to monitor and detect performance problems.

This new release has been enhanced to support:

• CA Datacom/DB r11
• CA Ideal™ r11
• CA IPC r11

For more information and to register for the CA Datacom Resource Analyzer r11 Beta program, click on this link.

For more information on CA's Enhanced Beta Programs and Participation Requirements, visit ca.com/betas.

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CA Datacom® Drop Support Dates for Older Release Levels
CA currently supports CA Datacom CICS Services r2.6 and r11. Similarly, CA currently supports CA Datacom/AD r10 and r11.

On September 30, 2008, CA will drop support for CA Datacom CICS Services r2.6 (z/OS only) and CA Datacom/AD r10 (z/OS only).

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DST Instructions for CA Datacom®/DB and CA Datacom®/AD
Twice a year, several regions around the world have to alter their clocks to take advantage of Daylight Saving Time. Click here for details relative to both CA Datacom environments.

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How Does z/OS 1.9 Affect CA Datacom®/DB and CA Datacom®/AD Sites?
IBM z/OS 1.9 is scheduled to be released on September 30, 2007. When sites begin their new release testing, they must make a decision regarding CA Datacom task storage methodology. The choices are the following:

• Accept the z/OS 1.9 default of VSM ALLOWUSERKEYCSA(NO).
  
  With this setting, CA Datacom MUF regions must use the task storage data space option.
  
• Keep the z/OS 1.8 default of VSM ALLOWUSERKEYCSA(YES).
  
  With this setting, CA Datacom MUF regions may use the task storage data space option or the user key ECSA option.

For more information, review the recently posted knowledge document entitled "CA Datacom Task Area Storage: User Key ECSA and Data Space" at this link.

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New Version of Dataminer Available for CA Datacom®/DB RXX-Based Change Capture
and Audit Reporting
The CA Datacom group now has a new version of the Dataminer programs (available for several releases) that has been updated for CA Datacom/DB r11. To learn about this updated version, which includes significant new functionality and processing options, click this link.

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How is 64-bit Memory Used in z/OS by CA Datacom®/DB r11?
This article describes how z/OS 64-bit memory is exploited in CA Datacom/DB r11 for the Memory Resident Data Facility (MRDF) for covered and virtual areas. It explains how the various parameters interact to implement COVERED and VIRTUAL usage and how memory is actually allocated. It provides samples of MRDF reports from MUF shutdown. Click here for more information.

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How Do I Determine Which Data/Index Areas are the Best Candidates to Be
Implemented as Covered?
This article provides SQL queries for CA Datacom/DB Dynamic System Tables to determine the areas for which the COVERED Multi-User start-up option may yield the most benefit. If you have not implemented covered areas, here is a way to determine the potential benefits of covering one or more areas. If you are already using covered areas, here is a way to verify that your choices are yielding the best benefit.

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