Working with historical versions of resource definitions

Whenever you use CICSĀ® Configuration Manager to change (create, update, or delete) a resource definition, CICS Configuration Manager records the change in its journal. For each change, CICS Configuration Manager records the state of the resource definition before the change (before image) and the state after the change (after image). These before/after images are known collectively as historical versions. You can view, compare, and recover historical versions.

You can use the following two types of list panel to work with historical versions:

Changes that match your criteria
This list panel displays changes; each change corresponds to a before/after image pair in the journal.

To display this list panel, select primary menu option 4.3 CICS changes. This option allows you to specify the criteria of the changes that you want to work with, such as the change date.

Figure 1. Viewing a list panel of changes that match your crtieria
Tip:
  • To view the before or after image of a change, enter V next to the change. This displays the change after image, with one exception: for deletions, the before image is displayed.
  • To compare the before and after images of a change side-by-side, enter S next to the change.
History of a specific resource definition
This list panel displays all historical versions of a specific resource definition and, if it exists, the current version (indicated by the most recent change date). Each historical version on this list panel represents a before image or an after image from the journal, collated from all of the changes recorded for that resource definition, omitting duplicates (where the before image of a change matches the after image of the previous change).
To display this list panel, enter H next to an item on one of the following list panels:
  • A list panel of resource definitions, shown under various primary menu options, such as 2 CICS Resources and 4.1 Multiple Configs

    (The H line action is only available on some list panels of resource definitions.)

  • A list panel of changes, shown under primary menu option 4.3 CICS changes

Identifying changes performed outside of CICS Configuration Manager

The journal contains historical versions of resource definitions only for changes made using CICS Configuration Manager. If you use another method to edit a resource definition, such as the CEDA transaction supplied with CICS, then the journal will not contain the version prior to that edit. For details, see Resource definition changes reported by CICS Configuration Manager.

If you have exclusively used CICS Configuration Manager to change resource definitions, and you have not unloaded records from the journal, then the before image of a change to a resource definition will match the after image of the previous change to that resource definition. If this before image and this after image do not match, it means that the before image represents a change performed outside of CICS Configuration Manager.

On the list panel displayed by line action H, the ID column for such historical versions contains the value "Unknown".