DTS Software: Storage Control Suite V.7.1 of IBM z/OS Storage and System Management Products

DTS Software LLC announces the availability of release 7.1 of the Storage Control Suite of storage and system management products with improved support for the latest z/OS version 2.4.

The company, provider on mainframe storage management software vendor, announced the latest release of the Storage Control Suite (SCC) for z/OS. Since its founding in 1991, the firm has continually provided quality systems software to meet the needs of data center managers and systems and storage administrators. Release 7.1 builds on this tradition with enhancements in functionality, usability, and reliability for its mission-critical role in the IBM mainframe environment.

“We’re pleased to make this major release of our storage management software available to customers on Feb. 1,” said Steve Pryor, CTO. “Seven dot one brings a host of new functions to complement the latest enhancements to IBM DFSMS including dataset encryption, a relevant topic given the high-profile cyber breach in the US in December of 2020, and support for the most recent (2.4) and future release of z/OS.“

The 7.1 release includes enhancements and features requested by the company’s user community. It introduces several new policy rules environments and variables including encryption, RLS, tape, new environments, and more. All maintenance fixes for DTS SCC V6.1 have been incorporated into source code and updated, plus more easily readable documentation with more use-case examples is included. This release will be GA on February 1, 2021 and will be downloadable from the company’s software support site. Older releases of SCC will continue to be supported as long as practicable, including on older z/OS releases. DTS recommends running the most current release of both SCC and IBM’s z/OS.

There are additional company’s products included in V7.1 that have enhancement updates.

Allocation Control Center provides installations with flexible policies to provide standards for creating, using, and deleting datasets, job execution parameters, tape and disk device management, and more.

ACC enhancements:

• ACC is renamed to ACC Monarch with an emphasis on system wide standards enforcement

• Improved GDG-base standards enforcement

• IDCAMS Delete and dataset OPEN enhancements

• Improved tape subpooling and device selection

Space Recovery System effectively eliminates production and test out-of-space errors while providing improved dataset and disk volume utilization.

SRS enhancements

• Timed retry space error recovery technique

• SMS storage group overlimit warnings and actions

• Critical resource early warning policy rules

SMS debug and audit provides tools that give the storage administrator a more complete understanding of their environment, including ACS routine logic tracing, ACS testing, and SMS construct validation.

SMS debug and audit enhancements

• SMS configuration audit trail and ISPF interface

• Updated ACS test case gen

• Reporting on used/unused SMS constructs

Easy-Exit provides installations with centralized policy rules for all major z/OS subsystems, including JES2, DFSMShsm, FTP, RACF (including password and passphrase processing), batch job execution, TSO logon, and more, without the need for assembler-language skills.

Easy-Exit enhancements

• Environment – TSO SUBMIT command exit to enforce policy rules for submitted jobs

• Environment – z/OS console command exit to enforce policy rules for console commands

• Environment – support for module fetch and LLA exits to assist with Cobol V6 migration

About DTS Software
It is a provider of enterprise storage management technology. Specializing in products for the OS/390, MVS, Hitachi VOS3 and Fujitsu MSP OSs, its products provide function and features that allow managers and users to more effectively utilize their investment in storage systems. The firm was founded in 1991 and currently has over 1,000 customers in the US, Canada, Europe, and the Far East.