ALM Connector 6.1.3 Release Notes

About this Release

Welcome to ALM Connector 6.1.3.

ALM Connector is a flexible set of services and programs that can be used from Windows or UNIX/Linux platforms to deploy to z/OS through ChangeMan ZMF.

ChangeMan ZMF integration with Release Control 6.0.1 and above is implemented through the Release Control ChangeMan ZMF plugin and ALM Connector.

Note:

This product was named ZMF Connector for versions 6.0 to 6.1.2. For earlier versions it was named Mainframe Connector.
There are additional ways to integrate products with ChangeMan ZMF using ALM Connector. For help with custom integrations, contact Support and Services.

Documentation References

Refer to the ALM Connector Configuration Guide for configuration details.
Refer to Documentation Center for the most current documentation.
Refer to the What's New tab for a complete list of new features in this release.

Helpful Links

What's New

Enhancements

Enhancements made to ALM Connector 6.1.3 include the following:

Added support for Release Control version 6.2
Services have been updated to add support for Release Control version 6.2 with its updated ChangeMan ZMF provider plugin.
Added support for creating planned and unplanned change packages
Services for creating planned and unplanned change packages are now included in ALM Connector.
Updated resource file with the latest ALF notification URL
The zmfalf_resource.xml file has been updated with an example URL for the latest ALF notification URL. The path has been changed to:

http://localhost:8085/rlc/notification/zmf

The path for earlier versions of ALF was as follows:

http://localhost:8085/rlc/rest/deploy/autoprocess/notification/ZMF/

Important: The host name should be left as localhost only if ALM Connector is installed on the same machine as Release Control. If not, you must change the server name from localhost to the correct server name.

More Information

To learn more about ALM Connector, visit these areas:

Upgrades

This section provides important information for upgrades to ALM Connector version 6.1.3.

Before you upgrade, review the following sections, and then proceed with the upgrade.

For full documentation on installing the Release Control ZMF plugin client jar, refer to "Installing Plugins" in the Release Control ChangeMan ZMF Plugin Quick Reference on Documentation Center. This documentation also includes details on adding plugin configurations and using the plugin.

Downloading ALM Connector
Installing ALM Connector
Upgrading the Release Control ZMF Plugin
Upgrading from Earlier Versions of ALM Connector

Downloading ALM Connector

To download:

Download ALM Connector 6.1.3 from the ALM Solutions Connector product download page on the Support website.

Note: The version of Common Tomcat has not changed from the previous release, so there is typically no need to download it for upgrades.

Installing ALM Connector

To upgrade from ALM Connector 6.0 or above to ALM Connector 6.1.3:

Backup the earlier version. For example, copy the following directories to a backup location:
C:\Program Files\Serena\common\tomcat\8.0\webapps\...

almsernet

almzmf

almzmfalf

almzmfws
Install the new version of the ALM Connector services:
1. Extract the war files from the ALM Connector 6.1.3 installation zip file. These include:
  almsernet
  
  almzmf
  
  almzmfalf
  
  almzmfws
2. Copy all of the war files into the Common Tomcat webapps directory. For example:
  C:\Program Files\Serena\common\tomcat\8.0\webapps
3. Restart Common Tomcat.
  Common Tomcat will automatically unpack and deploy the war files when the server is running.
After you have installed the ALM Connector services, you must configure resource properties for the following services. If they are not encrypted, you can use your backed up versions of the properties files to get the values you need for setup.
- almzmfalf
  Refer to ALM Connector Configuration Guide, "Configuring ALF Properties".
- almsernet
  Refer to ALM Connector Configuration Guide, "Configuring the Login for HTTP Server".
Important: Although the almzmf and almzmfws services need no additional configuration, the services are used when deployment tasks are executed.

Note: The host and port information for ChangeMan ZMF is specified in the ZMF plugin configuration. The ZMF plugin configuration also specifies the URL for the ALM Connector. You can define multiple plugin configurations that point to different ChangeMan ZMF systems and different ALM Connector configurations.

Upgrading the Release Control ZMF Plugin

If needed, upgrade your Release Control ZMF plugin to work with ALM Connector 6.1.3. If you are using a version of the Release Control ZMF plugin that has been certified to work with ALM Connector 6.1.3, you do not need to upgrade the plugin. See Supported Platforms.

If you need to upgrade the ZMFplugin, refer to the Plugin Release Notes on Documentation Center.

Upgrading from Earlier Versions of ALM Connector

For assistance with upgrading to ALM Connector 6.1.3 from a version earlier than ALM Connector 6.0, contact Serena Support.

Known Issues

Issues known to exist at the time of release are as follows:

Audit requests do not show as completed if the audit return code is 20. (DEF275298).
If you execute a change package audit request, and the ChangeMan ZMF started task is somehow terminated during the execution, the audit return code returned to ALM Connector is 20. In this situation, the audit task may not show as completed in the integrating product, even if it is ultimately completed successfully in ChangeMan ZMF.
When configuring the ALM Connector services, if you run encrypt.cmdto encrypt the almsernet properties, you get an error.
When configuring the ALM Connector almsernet service, if you run encrypt.cmdto encrypt the almsernet_resource.properties files, the following error occurs:

Could not find or load main class com.serena.sernet.httpserver.util.Encrypt

To workaround this issue, you must edit the ..\webapps\almsernet\WEB-INF\encrypt.cmd file and change almsernet-8.1.0.jar to almsernet-8.1.2.jar.

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