This new release can help accelerate testing and production delivery of Job Control Language streams, with an additional interface for integration in a DevOps pipeline and the integration with IBM Z Workload Scheduler to help avoid false alerts. 

Some of the key features and benefits of the new release are the following:

• Security checking for submitter users.
• Integration with IBM Z Workload Scheduler to automatically resolve variables leveraged by the scheduler product to help avoid false errors during the JCL validation process.
  • This integration includes launching JCL Expert from the IZWS Dynamic Workload Console (DWS).
• Provides new extensibility & new interfaces to service IBM clients:
  • Eclipse plug-in. Users can invoke IBM Z JCL Expert from IBM Developer for z/OS by the IBM Z JCL Expert Eclipse plug-in.
  • RESTful APIs. The REST APIs enable the tool to be invoked for a single member or all members of a PDS or PDSE, and as a block of JCL text.
    • The Zowe API Mediation Layer and IBM z/OS Management Facility (z/OSMF) are required to run the IBM Z JCL Expert APIs.
    • Zowe CLI plugin. The IBM Z JCL Expert plugin for Zowe CLI adds the group of commands named “zjcl-expert” or “jclx.”
• Validation across multiple systems. This capability enables customers to validate JCL associated with a plan, especially in a large production batch environments, managed by IZWS to validate.
• Improved Site-specific JCL standards – Provides compliance with site-specific JCL coding standards is enforced by defining site rules for the tool to validate.
• Validation of the existence of IBM® Db2® plans and subsystems that is referenced in the JCL.
• Enhanced syntax checking with the addition of Job Entry Control Language (JECL), data definition (DD), and JES execution control statement
• Surrogate security checking – When a job is submitted in production, this feature will allow the job to run under a different user id.

More information can be found on IBM’s site here.