Change packages

A change package can identify a set of resource definitions that you want to process together, or it can contain a set of commands that you want to process together, or both. You can process a change package to:

For example, suppose that you are a CICS application developer, and you are enhancing an existing CICS application. The enhancements involve altering existing resource definitions and adding new resource definitions. You have made these changes in your development environment, and now you want to migrate them to your test environment. By adding the altered or new resource definitions to a change package, you can migrate, install, and, if required, back out these changes together. If the enhancements make some existing resource definitions redundant, you can include commands in the change package to delete those resource definitions from the test environment when you migrate the change package from development to test. Backing out the change package "undoes" the delete commands, reinstating the deleted resource definitions to the test environment.

A change package does not contain resource definitions; rather, it contains selection keys that refer to resource definitions stored in a CSD file or a CICSPlex SM context. A selection key identifies a resource definition by its name, group, type, and CICS configuration.

CICS Configuration Manager does not keep its own copy of current resource definitions; these remain in the CSD file or the CICSPlex SM context. However, when you migrate a change package, CICS Configuration Manager writes in its journal "before" and "after" images of the resource definitions from the affected CICS configurations. This enables CICS Configuration Manager to back out migrations.


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Timestamp icon Last updated: Friday, 8 February 2013


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