Breaking Changes and Important Updates in Zowe v3

The upcoming release of Zowe v3 will bring a range of major changes in Zowe functionality. Review this article for details about changes to various Zowe components to be introduced in Zowe v3.

API Mediation Layer (API ML)

Breaking Changes to API ML

• Authentication endpoints will not support the route /api/v1/gateway, and instead will support only /gateway/api/v1
• Spring Enabler will be updated to Spring Boot 3 and Spring 6. Spring Boot 2 and Spring 5 versions will no longer be supported.
• Datasets API will be archived
• Jobs API will be archived
• Metrics service will be archived
• IMS API will be archived
• Java 17 will be required for the API Mediation Layer to run
• z/OSMF in version V2R5 with APAR PH12143 applied
• Configuration of keyrings will require transformation from safkeyring://// to safkeyring://

Important updates

The current API Gateway contains Authentication and Authorization Services. This service will be separated as a standalone service. This is the only API Mediation Layer service that needs z/OS directly

Application Framework

Breaking changes

• Updating Angular to Version 16 from Version 12
• Removing the core-js dependency
• Updating Webpack to version 5
• Updating Typescript to 4.9

CLI

Breaking changes

• Introducing a new format for error messages to improve clarity
• Removing V1 profile support
• Removing deprecated items - CLI and Imperative

Pre-release availability

• V3 pre-release versions are available via npm under the 'next' tag

Explorer for Intellij

Important updates

• Explorer for Intellij will be part of the Zowe Core
• Working with USS Files
• Working with Data Sets
• Working with JES Working Sets
• Interactive TSO Console

Explorer for Visual Studio Code

Breaking changes

• Removing V1 profile support
• Removing deprecated items - Explorer for VSCode
• Changing profile creation menus
• Storing extension settings in local storage

Important updates

• Storing persistent settings in local storage
• Comparing files in MVS view, the USS view, and across the two views

Pre-release availability

• V3 pre-release versions are available via GitHub releases or via the Open VSX Registry.

Installation and Packaging

Breaking changes

• Dropping the original V2 configuration management, zowe.useConfigmgr=false. (The Configuration Manager remains as the only supported method for configuring Zowe)

Important updates

• Removing the dependency on Node.js for configuration
• Introducing ZEN, a wizard to simplify configuration via the UI

ZSS

Breaking changes

• Run by default in 64 bit mode, components.zss.agent.64bit=true. 31-bit plugins cannot run in 64-bit ZSS, so you need to compile your plugins for the version of ZSS to be used. Note that only one version of ZSS can run at a time.