You can specify that a CICS® bundle has changed by increasing the version in the bundle manifest file. If the CICS bundle is referenced by an application bundle, you must also increase the version of that bundle for redeployment. This information is important for tracking and managing changes to the CICS environment.
When you update an application that is deployed on a platform, the application is unavailable to users from the time when you disable and discard the installed APPLCTN resource in the CICSplex for the previous version of the application, to the time when you install the new APPLDEF resource definition and enable the new version of the application. Plan a suitable time when this can safely occur, or plan an alternative solution for users of the application during that time.
Semantic versioning provides a way
to increment the major, minor, or micro parts of a version to indicate
the compatibility or incompatibility with previous versions of a bundle.
For example, bug fixes might increment the micro part of the version,
compatible changes increment the minor part of the version, and incompatible
changes increment the major part of the version. For more information
about semantic versioning, see Semantic Versioning Technical Whitepaper.
It is a best practice to apply a versioning policy to your CICS bundles to effectively deploy and manage updates in the CICS environment.