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Consolidation Release "8.63"

  • 1.  Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Oct 27, 2021 04:02 AM
    Hi
    is there any news that CA will publish new consolidation Release "8.63" Soon to cumulative all the PTFs exposed after Release "8.62"

    Thanks 
    Tarek


  • 2.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"
    Best Answer

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Oct 27, 2021 05:27 PM
    @Tarek Kamal I don't have news to share on this. It's on my list of things to look into, but we have been focused on other priorities. I think the term Broadcom is now using is "Level Set", but I haven't looking into it much.







    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Product Owner, CA Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano,TX
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Jan 14, 2022 03:52 AM
    Hi Kim

    I agree with the other contributors about the benefits of a "roll up" release, but I would like to add a couple of comments to the discussion. 
    • It seems a little strange that you can still download and install the "original Gen 8.6" and then need to work out which of the many PTFs are needed. If you are going through the effort of producing a "roll up" PTF, e.g. 86300, then also update the base software to that level.
    • When you produce the "roll up" PTF set, please also produce a summary document of the fixes with a specific section dedicated to the summary of User Actions required by ALL of the PTFs. I was recently involved in an exercise of installing 20-30 PTFs across several machines for a customer, and the need for re-generating "affected" code for one PTF was missed in the "noise" of the job at hand, Thankfully this customer was able to easily regenerate all application code once the problem was discovered, but the time taken to find the problem could have been avoided

    Thanks
    Kevin


  • 4.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jan 14, 2022 03:38 PM
    @Kevin Bingham Thank you for that additional detail. Sounds like very helpful and reasonable suggestions. I'll be sure to include this in my list of considerations when we get this "roll up" work started. ​

    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Product Owner, CA Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano,TX
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Oct 27, 2021 05:28 PM
    To all Gen Customers: 
    If this is valuable to you, let me know!
    • Is this something you need? What benefits would you gain by having a consolidated release, like a Level Set / Roll-Up?
    • What is your current cadence for keeping up with Gen maintenance? ​Do you install PTFs as they are published or on some sort of calendar cycle ( for example: quarterly)?


    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Product Owner, CA Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano,TX
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Oct 28, 2021 01:47 AM

    Hi Kim 
    thanks for your reply 
    for my environment 
    currently, I upgrade Gen from 8.5 to 8.6 
    so 8.63 will save time instead of installing all the new PTFs since the 8.62 release 

    However, I will follow the CA approach of upgrade (Continuous Delivery CD)
    appreciate your priority 




  • 7.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Oct 28, 2021 02:58 AM
    Kim,

    Yes, this is valuable to have rollups.  I'm primarily in a Windows environment.  We tend to patch quarterly or less frequently due to the finicky nature of patching.

    We've internally built scripts to apply a set of patches in sequence, but someone still has to find them, download them, sort out pre-reqs/co-reqs, what's been superseded (and should be dropped) and so on.  The text files for each PTF aren't consistent in layout, so it's not simple to pull this out programatically.

    But our data file as at end March 2021 had the basic consolidation PTF + 39 PTFs to apply.  There's a newer one but I don't have it local.  Looking at the PTF page https://support.broadcom.com/external/content/release-announcements/CA-Gen-8.6-Solutions--Patches/4762 you've got the best part of 75 PTFs for the Windows platform.  That's a lot to sort and sequence by hand.

    Linux is less problematic for us, but that's primarily a function of there being a lot less PTFs (12 in total including superseded) and being able to build it/tear it down as a Docker image in a handful of minutes.


  • 8.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Nov 02, 2021 02:21 AM
    Hi Kim,
    I agree with Daniel and Tarek. A consolidation PTF or release from time to time makes things easier.

    best regards


  • 9.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Jan 13, 2022 09:21 PM

    Hi Kim;
    I think after Broadcom launched the new feature of consuming REST web services 
    it's time to New Consolidation Release




  • 10.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jan 14, 2022 03:50 PM
    @Tarek Kamal I too am excited about the great milestone we reached by publishing Consuming REST for Gen's CICS and Java applications.

    We will have a consolidated PAX file for our mainframe users very soon. I don't have a timeline for our non-mainframe software yet. We have some maintenance items to address to make it happen. I'll share when I have an estimated delivery date. ​

    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Product Owner, CA Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano,TX
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 08, 2022 03:04 PM
    Edited by Kim Peelman Jun 09, 2022 04:16 PM

     

    *This is a forward looking statement. This is subject to change at any time without notice. The development, release, and timing remain at Broadcom's sole discretion. 

     

    I'm pleased to share that we are planning a consolidation of Gen's PTF for distributed systems. This will consist of all distributed PTFs after WKS86200 (aka Gen 8.6 "Complete"). We currently estimate delivery by the end of the month (June 2022)*. I'll post an announcement here in the Gen EDGE Community with more details when this is available.

     

    Note: For the mainframe PTFs we recently released a PAXfile, Gen 8.6 Level 2111 on z/OS. Check out the announcement here for details. For Distributed these consolidation PTFs are installed on top of WKS86200 but the PAXFile is a total replacement - a new install, not to be installed on top of the previous PAXfile.  



    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Kim.Peelman@broadcom.com
    Product Owner, Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano, TX
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Posted Jun 09, 2022 02:46 AM
    Hi Kim,
    Thanks for that
    It will save time and keep the environment more stability



  • 13.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jun 30, 2022 11:48 AM
    Hey everyone! I'm very happy with how the Gen 8.6.3 Consolidation work is going. However, it is taking longer than I estimated. I'll publish an announcement when it is done. 

    This is why the lawyers make me say: *This is a forward looking statement. This is subject to change at any time without notice. The development, release, and timing remain at Broadcom's sole discretion. 

    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Kim.Peelman@broadcom.com
    Product Owner, Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano, TX
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Consolidation Release "8.63"

    Broadcom Employee
    Posted Jul 12, 2022 08:50 AM
    I'm pleased to share that the Gen 8.6.3 Consolidation is now available. Details are available in this announcement: https://community.broadcom.com/mainframesoftware/discussion/now-available-gen-863-consolidation#bm6bbd0fc8-07cc-4650-8176-93b3ec868c98

    ------------------------------
    Kim Peelman
    Kim.Peelman@broadcom.com
    Product Owner, Gen
    Broadcom
    Plano, TX
    ------------------------------