News - Press Release - September 2004

IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR z/XDC CUSTOMERS MIGRATING TO z/OS R1.6

AFTON, Va. , September 17, 2004/ -- In late August, Cole Software LLC announced the availability of a beta test program for release z1.6 of z/XDC. Major changes in this release include High Level Assembler Release VR15 ADATA support and support for the new Address Space Number (ASN) and Linkage Index (LX) Reuse Facility (ALRF).

ALRF is a major change to both the hardware and software architectures that permits the reuse of ASNs for PC routine server spaces that go down.

We expect IBM to make z/OS R1.6 generally available this month (September). In support of ALRF, z/OS R1.6 contains many system control block changes that are not compatible with prior releases of the system, so I've had to recode z/XDC to work correctly with these changes. The result is the beta release of z/XDC z1.6.

Please note that the ALRF-support changes in z/OS R1.6 exist regardless of whether or not the hardware being used actually offers ARLF. Consequently, all older releases of z/XDC will fail in all instances of z/OS R1.6 regardless of whether or not ALRF is present. Therefore, it is imperative that z/XDC customers who migrate to z/OS R1.6 also upgrade to release z1.6 of z/XDC.

z/XDC z1.6, of course, remains backwards compatible with all older z/OS's.

Customers who wish to upgrade to the beta version of z/XDC z1.6 may do so simply by sending a request to me at dbcole@colesoft.com.

Note, z/XDC z1.6 is being offered only as a beta right now primarily because the documentation is not yet ready. z1.6 will be formally released when the doc is complete. We expect that to be by the end of the month.

Thanks,

Dave Cole