The following is a list of all changes made to the product family of MDCMS version 8.4 for sub-release 0.
| Date | Category | Component | Description |
| May 4, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | ALL | Release of version 8.4 |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | The maximum length of object names and source names has been increased from 80 characters to 128 characters to handle longer-named SQL entities and IFS files | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | The maximum length of application codes has been increased from 4 characters to 6 characters | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | The maximum length of level numbers has been increased from 2 digits to 3 digits | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Object Request Tracing
Beginning with any requests that are checked out or installed after upgrading to MDCMS version 8.4, MDCMS now stores the route that an object request takes as it is deployed to various levels across all partitions. The data includes the date/time of the event as well as the RFP number, user and request reason. This data can be viewed in the following places:
The steps listed will include:
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| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | When copying a promotion level to a new level number, the option can be taken to also copy the distribution levels defined for the promotion level | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | Within the MDXREF view in MDOpen, you now have the ability to view all object system attributes for:
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| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | From the Object History view, you now have the option to view the current source for the historical object request | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | The RFP Compare with Branch function also now performs comparisons for *IFS objects | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | New React framework for vastly improved Deployment Flow Diagram
When the Deployment Flow Diagram option is now taken, the diagramming is handed off to the MDCMS Rest API server running on the partition and the result is displayed in a browser. This provides for much improved drawing, scaling and printing of the diagram. The MDCMS Rest server must be defined and running for this to work. It can be set up in MDCMS from the Setup Menu→Interface Settings→MD REST API Server |
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| ENHANCEMENT | MDWorkflow | The task listing in MDWorkflow can now be filtered by the task number | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDWorkflow | The details for a task can be refreshed directly from the task detail screen using the new Refresh button in the screen | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDXREF | Variable length fields now display the usable length rather than total length and a V is shown to indicate the field is of variable length
Within MDXREF in MDOpen, the Variable Length column value will be true or false. The MDXREF database must be rebuilt after upgrading to 8.4 to take advantage of this |
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| May 14, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | Ignore invalid characters in SQL scripts when parsing for wildcards |
| FIX | MDCMS | When creating the MDCMS http server – set the aliases and directory entries in the conf file to include the ASP device, when MDCMS is installed in an ASP. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix request cancellation handling in Object Manager for modification of source | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix RFP copy in MDOpen when IFS object resides in a relative path | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix retrieval of remote information in the Deployment Flow Diagram | |
| FIX | MDSEC | Fix use of Role and User filters in the MDSEC list screens | |
| May 18, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | In order to very easily, cleanly and automatically update the DB objects for development and test branch libraries when the objects are installed into the copy of production on the development or test partition, a new parameter “Library in Branch” has been added to the Object Replication Templates
When Branch Library is set to Y, MDCMS will check if an installation has occurred into the branch library for the Object since the Production version of the object was originally checked out. If there has been an install, this means that either the branch was used to create the production version or another long-running project is working on the object and the object will be left as-is. If there hasn’t been an install, then MDCMS will replicate the object to the branch library, keeping the data in the branch library intact. Anyone currently using separate levels to perform this, can now remove those levels and use the replication template instead. If you need to have any existing dependencies recompiled over the updated database objects, they would still need to happen from a separate RFP using the standard branch level numbers. |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix creation of MD http server to handle libraries being located in the iASP | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix library list handling for the following services when started via the command:
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| FIX | MDCMS | Fix receipt of RFPs via SNA | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix the setting of the RFP status to MDRapid pending when restarting and RFP in error and auto-approve = N | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix closure of an RFP when resetting it from a status above 01 | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Skip MDRapid for a logical file if the based-on file was previously slated to be copied using MDRapid but isn’t anymore after restart of the RFP. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix listing of source deletion template levels | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix copy of IFS file to dev folder when replacing existing file in 5250 | |
| May 23, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | Object-Level commands can now be edited from the object list within the RFP manager when the RFP status is still 01 |
| FIX | MDCMS | avoid memory allocation errors in COBOL programs | |
| FIX | MDOpen | cosmetic improvements to the Deployment Flow Diagram | |
| May 30, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | MDCMS Webhook for a Git push to an Azure DevOps repository. The resource path for the webhook is /azure/git/webhook |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix the Object History filter for minimum/maximum install date in MDCMS | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix the editing of the developer library for message description requests | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Switch the CCSID of MDCMS jobs to the CCSID defined in the system or MDSEC user settings when the job CCSID isn’t otherwise 37 or 500 to ensure correct encoding. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix level validation for an existing object request when attempting to change the attribute for the request | |
| FIX | MDOpen | Fix the display of report output | |
| FIX | MDOpen | allow Git passwords to be up to 128 characters in length | |
| FIX | MDRapid | Fix the cleanup of MDRapid workfiles when the RFP is reset back to status 01 or lower | |
| June 6, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | The data copy templates can now copy data in physical files that have multiple members from one partition to another |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix read/update of Distribution Object Overrides | |
| FIX | MDOpen | Fix deletion of cloned Git repository in the IFS when a Git location is deleted in MDOpen | |
| FIX | MDXREF | Fix for the Object Library comparison report so that it correctly reports the results of the comparison | |
| June 20, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | Fix SQL script parsing when executable portion of prefaced by comments |
| FIX | MDCMS | use from source file length for length of source file in the temporary install library when the target source file doesn’t exist yet | |
| FIX | MDCMS | If there aren’t any objects in a send RFP, due to a merge in another RFP, load the objects/commands from installation history when a reopen of the RFP is requested. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Ignore Primary Key and Unique constraints for missing related objects warning or include related objects, since those types of constraints are predominately defined in the same script as the table | |
| July 5, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Azure DevOps Work Item Interface for import of Work Items in Azure DevOps as Projects, Tasks and Subtasks in MDCMS. Also transition the state of Work Items and post comments from MDCMS. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | ability to use update commands instead of compile time commands for new objects compiled from source or for recompiles. This provides a mechanism to wait to create an object until the installation time. A use case for this is for the migration and execution of SQL scripts for indexes created by the IBM index advisor. | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | Rich Text editor for Project, Task and Subtask descriptions | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | ability to filter Projects, Tasks and Subtasks by a custom field value | |
| FIX | MDCMS | fix calculation of required disk space for the modification of physical files | |
| FIX | MDCMS | avoid MSGW in RFP job during the cleanup phase when *DATA object is for an attribute registered with a Delete Template | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix ability to refresh IFS log views | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix removal of prior object in developer library when trying to create multiple objects at the same time | |
| July 7, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | Handle retrieval of Jira issues for projects using names reserved by the Jira Query Language |
| July 12, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Execute Bamboo Pipeline plans during the RFP batch process to build, test, deploy, perform workflow acceptance or rollback artifacts on target systems. Any number of Bamboo Pipeline plans can be invoked during the appropriate RFP phase, with the ability to pass any number of MDCMS or customer parameters and to cache parameter values between plans for a very flexible and powerful DevOps master process from within MDCMS.
All job information generated by Bamboo can be automatically injected into the RFP Deployment log for a single point of auditing and troubleshooting across platforms. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Execute GitLab Pipelines during the RFP batch process to build, test, deploy, perform workflow acceptance or rollback artifacts on target systems. Any number of GitLab Pipelines can be invoked during the appropriate RFP phase, with the ability to pass any number of MDCMS or customer parameters and to cache parameter values between pipelines for a very flexible and powerful DevOps master process from within MDCMS.
All job information generated by GitLab can be automatically injected into the RFP Deployment log for a single point of auditing and troubleshooting across platforms. |
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| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | Ability to find object requests inline within Projects, Tasks, Subtasks and RFPs by pressing on the binoculars icon in the Object request header | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | When MDOpen detects a URL in the RFP deployment log, it can be clicked on to open the page in a browser | |
| FIX | MDCMS | fix option for locally copying a promotion level so that the interactive job doesn’t go into MSGW, when the Promotion Levels settings are opened from the Application settings | |
| July 18, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | fix delay in MDPUSH job, when prior attempt to connect to remote server failed |
| FIX | MDCMS | fix recommendation of MDCMS attribute when history doesn’t exist for the object and it is created using an SQL script. No longer recommend a DDS attribute regardless if object name is the system name or SQL long name. | |
| August 8, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | Default the RFP description to be the summary of the Project, Task or Subtask when creating a new RFP from the MDOpen dialog to add or import an object request. This will occur when clicking on the New RFP button as long as a valid project, task or subtask is already entered in the dialog. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen
MDWorkflow |
Ability to filter the RFP listing in MDOpen and MDWorkflow by a generic project value | |
| FIX | MDCMS | automatically correct the parent library of referential constraints for a deployed child table when replicating the table to multiple libraries | |
| FIX | MDCMS | automatically correct the parent library of referential constraints for all unincluded child tables for a deployed parent table | |
| FIX | MDCMS | don’t automatically reapply a constraint or trigger for a deployed table when the constraint/trigger was requested for deletion in the same RFP | |
| FIX | MDCMS | no longer show the *SQLCST references in the related objects for files warning screen when submitting an RFP, since they will normally be part of the SQL script for the table or be automatically reapplied by MDCMS. And, they generally don’t need to be changed. However, check constraints and referential constraints will continue to be listed in the Include Related Objects displays. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Only show referential constraint dependency of a child table in the include related objects display or RFP submit warning display if a referenced parent table key has been modified. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | fix retrieval of reference field dependencies in the include related objects displays | |
| FIX | MDCMS | disable referential constraints and delete triggers from new version of file before MDTransform validation is performed during the bundle phase of an RFP. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Lock all files prior to installing any files to ensure that none of the block of files will be updated during the install phase | |
| FIX | MDCMS | prior to installing any files in an RFP that were prepared with MDRapid, verify that the record count matches between the new and old version of each file. Error out of the install process with a detailed message in the case of a mismatch, unless record errors have been explicitly permitted for the file in the MDRapid console. | |
| FIX | MDOpen | significant performance improvements to the Project, Task and Subtask listings | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix setting of command frequency for attribute commands when edited in MDOpen | |
| FIX | MDOpen | Each filter field that allows generic values with * placeholders now marked with *gen* in the field label | |
| FIX | MDOpen | Fix the function to copy Report Output to a database file | |
| FIX | MDXREF | fix the ability to refresh MDXREF for a specific object | |
| August 12, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDRapid | Constraints are now enabled and reapplied during the MDRapid process to reduce downtime during the installation, as long as they were added within the CREATE TABLE script or already existed on the live version of the file, and aren’t separately requested on the same RFP. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDRapid | The MDRapid console now shows the total number of records in the live and new version of the file per the most recent sync point (when no journal transactions are pending processing for the file by MDRapid). If there is a mismatch, the file will be placed in error status, but will continue syncing. An authorized user must explicitly select to allow record errors for MDCMS to proceed with the installation. | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | In the MDUPDTASK command, value *NOREF has been added to parameter NSTS to only update a task or subtask containing the internal reference value. If the reference value doesn’t exist, a task won’t be created. | |
| August 26, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | MDCMS can now be used as a remote node for Azure, Bamboo, GitLab and Jenkins Pipelines.
If you wish to orchestrate your deployments from a Pipeline rather than from MDCMS itself, you can now trigger the checkout of IBM i source from git repositories directly from a Pipeline step using the MDCMS REST API resource /git/checkout. A trace key can be included in the checkout request which is applied to the RFP. This key can then be passed as the filter parameter for the /RFP/SUBMIT API to submit the RFP for processing for each pending level. MDCMS can then inform the pipeline of the state of the processing for any RFP exit point using new command MDUPDPIPE. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Automatically replace the &LIB special value from LMI with the target library name in SQL scripts at runtime | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDOpen | A diagram is now available for request tracing. In the Trace Request view, click the Diagram button to see a visualization of the deployment flow for the request, which can display 3 modes of granularity:
If the Diagram button doesn’t appear, then the REST API and Diagram server hasn’t been installed yet – contact your administrator to install it. |
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| FIX | MDOpen | fix MDOpen RFP listing when filtering by task or subtask | |
| FIX | MDOpen | fix validation of allow checkouts flag when adding or copying a promotion level in MDOpen | |
| September 2, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | A Pipeline trace key can now be provided as a parameter for the following additional commands/Rest APIs:
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| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | If sending RFPs using method MDF for FTPS or SFTP, or GOA for GoAnywhere, MDRCVIFS no longer needs to be started manually if a MDPUSH or MDPULL job is defined between the sending system and the receiving system.
Also, if any sent RFPs or settings are staged in the IFS, they will be automatically copied to a save file when browsing for save files to receive. |
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| FIX | MDCMS | Fix of the select option for the RFP manager in green screen | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix setting of the object library for *SQLFUN and *SQLPRC attributes when they are generated using the attribute generation wizard. | |
| September 21, 2021 | FIX | MDCMS | The Task Report configurator now provides the Task Summary as a column instead of the extended description |
| FIX | MDCMS | Corrections to Migration tool for MKS Implementer → MDCMS when Integrity issues are used and when multiple MKS applications are merged into a single MDCMS application. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix “record not found” error when trying to resolve a conflict resolution under certain circumstances | |
| FIX | MDOpen | Fix the time zone calculation for display of activity in the Request Trace view | |
| September 27, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | When in the target location list screen for an RFP in the Send screen, new option T can be used to view details about the RFP on the target system that was received as a result of sending from the local system. If the sending system is also registered as a MDWorkflow base partition, and the user is authorized to approve or install RFPs on the target system, the Approve, Launch MDRapid and Install steps can be carried out from the send screen for the target RFP. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | A new validation check is performed prior to submitting an RFP to see if any logical files (indexes or views) are based on requested tables, but missing from the RFP. If any are missing, they must be added to the RFP in order to continue. Once that check is finished, MDCMS continues to the warning check for all other dependencies. This makes it very quick and easy to include all DB relations without necessarily taking other types of dependencies. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | When using data copy templates to copy data between libraries, MDCMS now disables referential constraints for all child tables prior to copying data for a parent table to avoid exceptions. When a library copy is complete, any disabled constraints are re-enabled. If enablement fails for a table, the issue will be written to the log file. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix ability to migrate from a prior level in the Pre-Submit validation screen | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix positioning when browsing attributes for SQL entities in the Pre-Submit validation screen | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix possible MSGW in Object Request Detail screen when source library longer than 15 characters and source replication is used | |
| October 7, 2021 | ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | Additional configuration information has been added to the MDCMS Configuration Report and the location ID, version and build date have been added to the report header. |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDCMS | The total number of objects in an RFP is now displayed from the Object List screen for an RFP within the RFP Manager or RFP History. | |
| ENHANCEMENT | MDRapid | The MDSTRRAP and MDENDRAP commands to systematically end or restart MDRapid jobs can now be used to end or restart jobs for any applicable RFP for an application rather than having to specify the RFP number. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Fix generation of the request number of received object requests when duplicated source or objects are included in the received package. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Always recreate Materialized Query Tables during the RFP Install phase if compiled during the Bundle phase to ensure correct based-on file libraries for the database relation. | |
| FIX | MDCMS | Use any pre-compile and post-compile commands when recreating an object during the RFP Install phase | |
| FIX | MDRapid | Fix boundary validation and SQL execution for tables with more than 800 columns in them. |